WEBVTT - A War For the Soul of Dungeons & Dragons 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.840 Hey, everybody, Robert here. UM. I recorded this with Jason 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:08.440 about two days before UM, Wizards of the Coast put 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:12.559 out an announcement completely backpedaling on everything they had been 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:17.000 planning to do to the Open Gaming License UM. Of 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.000 survey of fifteen thousand fans said they were not happy 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:25.200 with the Wizards uh de authorizing UM the one point 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.280 out open gaming license and uh, I mean, what it 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.800 looks like is a lot of people unregistered from D 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.600 and D beyond and UM, a lot of people called 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.839 in complaining and the numbers folks at Wizards panicked. UM. 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.960 And as a result, they are completely folding on the 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.600 plans to uh rescind or de authorize the open Gaming 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:49.879 License UM, and in factive announced that they are making it. Uh. 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:55.480 The exact terms they use are irrevocable and UH yeah, 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.560 that's that's good. Yeah. And they put everything under an 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:02.760 irrevocable creative comments license. So this is all just breaking UM. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.880 But I think it's broadly good news. Anytime a giant 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.680 company chooses to do something kind of crummy with a 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.280 piece of what what I would say is actually pretty 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:17.240 meaningful intellectual heritage. UH, and then they get slapped down 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.160 and panic and reverse course, that's a good thing. Um. 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.800 It shows a number of things, which one of which 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.240 probably the most important of which is that the community 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:31.039 of people who recognize their value in these kinds of games, 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:36.560 in this uh, this pastime, this recreational activity, um also 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:42.120 fundamentally value the essence of like what is open source ideology? 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.720 Which is nice, Like, it's nice to know that the 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.760 open source folks we can still throw a punch every 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:50.600 now and again, even if it's just a punch at 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:55.800 Wizards of the Coast. So happy ending, everybody, Happy ending. Also, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.480 the good folks at Pizo sold out of eight months 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:08.640 worth of Pathfinder books in two weeks, So that's nice too. Uh, 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.680 it could happen. Here is the podcast that you are 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.760 listening to right now. I am Robert Evans. This is 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.280 a show about things falling apart and sometimes putting them 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.360 back together. And today we're we're taking a little bit 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.600 of a different tack. In recent weeks, you've listened to 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:28.000 us cover a wide variety of issues, from conflicts in 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.239 places like me and mar two conflicts here at home 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.960 in the city of Atlanta, UM, to deep dives in 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.639 history and all that all that good stuff. That that 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.640 you know and love us. For today we are talking 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.800 about a subject that is unusually close to my heart, 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:48.200 Dungeons and Dragons. Now, I'm gonna guess, just given the 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.560 nature of our listenership, a decent chunk of you grew 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.280 up playing D and D UM, and just because of 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:58.680 how really shockingly suddenly it's become much more popular than 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.400 it than it ever was previously, and much more mainstream 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.880 a lot of you who may have encountered as an adult, Um, 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.120 there's a lot that's actually been written, kind of sociologically 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.760 on on what Dungeons and Dragons is. At one point 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.320 that some people will make is that it's it's kind 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.000 of the first new game that we had that that 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:21.560 human beings made up since like Chess, Um, by which 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.320 I mean you you have had war games for a 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.359 very long period of time. But the concept of a 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.200 role playing game and the way that that D and 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.280 D is, where you're essentially sitting down with a group 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.760 of people and engaging in an act of collaborative storytelling 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.600 that's kind of buttressed by a system of rules. That's 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.960 actually a pretty new idea now. Now, elements of this 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:44.240 have existed forever, UM and In fact, kind of an 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.080 interesting fact you'll run into is that in the late 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.680 medieval period a lot of jousts had role playing elements, 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.000 including ones were like rulers and and their their court 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.200 would dress up as the Knights of the Round Table 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.200 and act in character as those nights. So elements of 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:00.880 all of this stuff have a existed for a while, 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.640 but when Dungeons and Dragons kind of came together as 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.720 a game for the first time, it was it is 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.640 kind of worth seeing it as as something really new 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.960 and valuable in the history of play and the history 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.159 of human creativity. Um So as a result of that, 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.400 I do kind of think I I personally think there's 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.839 something a little bit sacred about that that basic idea. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:25.520 And one of the things that's really interesting to me 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.040 about the industry that grew up around Dungeons and Dragons 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.760 is that there have always been a lot of people 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.520 in it who I think feel the same way. Um 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:36.400 And I think one of these people was a guy 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.760 named Ryan Dancey, and Ryan dancy Um was vice president 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.440 in charge of Dungeons and Dragons at Wizards of the 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.919 Coast for a while um and he helped actually negotiate 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.719 the sale of the Dungeons and Dragons property to Wizards 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:51.760 of the Coast when the company that had been distributing 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.440 it fell apart, and Dancy was a big part of 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.039 the institution in the year two thousand of what became 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.440 known as the Open Gaming License, and they basically what 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.280 this meant is that the set of rules that that 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.080 D and D worked by, and at around two thousand, 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.120 which was I think you would call it like three 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.480 point oh, was the system in place basically got elements 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.239 of the mechanics got effectively open sourced. UM. And so 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.440 Wizards of the Coast UM went from what had been 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:23.400 the previous move of the people who had owned D 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.920 and D, which was kind of to oppose people trying 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.400 to make third party content using the ruled source, to 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.120 embracing it and allowing it to do that freely. UM. 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.680 And now I'm going to introduce our guest, who is 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.240 one of the people who uh is kind of the 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.120 one of the most influential folks in what happened after this, 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.960 because once the Open Gaming License came into effect, there's 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.320 suddenly this galaxy of new games and supplemental materials that 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.560 people start making, UM, which you know Wizards is not 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.160 profiting from directly, but which the hobby profits from UM. 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.360 And one of the people who has who has been 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.280 most influential in that is our guest today Jason Bollman. Jason, 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.240 you are the the game a lead game designer at 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.360 Piazzo and the creator of Pathfinder, which is the I mean, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.320 it's not Dungeons and Dragons, but it uses as its 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.760 base that kind of open gaming uh system, and it's 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:14.880 it's what I play when I get a chance to 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.560 sit down and play a role playing game. So, first off, Jason, 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.040 thank you for several thousand hours of of my my 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:25.560 childhood and early adulthood UM spent playing path Fighter. Yeah, 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.200 well thanks for having me. And yeah, PISO kind of 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.279 spun off from Wizards of the Coast UM, you know, 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.480 back in the early days of the open game license, 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.440 and we were there official publishers of their magazine until 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:41.400 that kind of came to an end, and then we 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:43.279 we started making our own game based off the open 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.240 game license. And did I did I? Did I get 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:47.880 all that right earlier? Do you have any kind of 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.360 clarification she'd like to add before we move further into 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:52.320 the conflict, And there is a conflict. We're not just 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.640 talking about how cool d Pathfighter are. I think there's 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.599 a There's an interesting thing to note about games. Games 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.800 are kind kind of weird when it comes to copyright 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.680 and ownership, and it's kind of why the Open Game 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.320 License is so important. Right. So TSR, the company that 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.360 owned Dungeons and Dragons before Wizards of the Coast, was 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.680 pretty pretty litigious, as you mentioned, um, but they ended 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.400 up getting into kind of a bind because you know, 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.400 the game itself is one that encourages people to make 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.480 their own content, to kind of homebrew stuff and invent 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.840 their own stories. And what it comes down to is 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:35.240 that you know, ultimately, game mechanics can't be copyrighted. That 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.680 that's been long held, that that those sorts of things 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.160 you cannot copyright. That's why you see so many versions 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.440 of like Scrabble that aren't Scrabble. Um. Yeah. And it's 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.640 why anyone can make a basketball team or a basketball 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.760 league and play basketball. You don't have to get the 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:54.440 NBA's approval to play fucking basketball exactly exactly. So the 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:59.160 Open Game License wasn't about giving everyone permission to use rules, 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.600 which is something that to already kind of do. It 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.920 was about giving them kind of a safe harbor, a 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.520 place that everybody involved kind of knew that this was 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.080 all okay, no one was going to be filing frivolous, 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.640 frivolous lawsuits, and that you could use kind of direct 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:21.720 references without having to be a copyright lawyer or retaining 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.320 a giant staff. It allowed a lot of very little 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.320 businesses to kind of spring up, making, Hey, here's my 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:29.880 cool adventure that I ran from my group. You can 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.200 buy it and play it with your group. Now, little 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.720 things like that, and I don't think it's for nothing. 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.080 That number one a huge thing. And this has become 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.760 as Silicon Valley is kind of turned more mercenary. This 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:42.760 has become less of a thing, but a massive thing 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:45.600 in the early history of Silicon Valley in the tech 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.679 industry was the open source movement. You know, was the 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.560 idea that a lot of people should be able to collaboratively, 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:53.960 work and iterate on things without having to worry about 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.880 who owns the basic idea right, you know. Lennox Is 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.000 is a great example of this, and the the ideology 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.719 behind the open source movement was a big influence in 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.600 the open gaming license. I mean Dancy kind of admits 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:07.880 that himself. There's a quote where he says that, like, Yeah, 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.000 I think we need to embrace some of these ideas 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.240 at the heart of the open source movement, because I 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:14.840 think it will be a good business decision for Wizards 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.200 of the Coast. It will on the whole, even if 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.559 we're not profiting directly from every sort of like thing 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:22.600 that people make off of this, the fact that it's 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:27.400 going to cause the hobby to explode will benefit us. 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.360 And I think he's been proven right in that because 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:31.920 D and D has gone from this thing that like 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.719 I got bullied for in high school too. There's these 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.600 massive podcast there's been TV shows that are just people 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.240 playing the game like it has reached this level. I 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:46.280 never really expected it would of like critical and and 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.040 mass acceptance, which has been really cool to see. It's 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:50.839 been one of the things that I've been happiest about 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:55.120 watching occurs socially in the last couple of decades. Yeah, 0:09:55.160 --> 0:10:00.320 you can't disagree that the business case wasn't super tight, right, Uh, 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:03.920 The way that the O g L got all of 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.240 the other game companies, many of which had their own 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.240 entirely different games in the early two thousands, they all 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:15.200 abandoned them and started making content for D and D UM, 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.199 and that just kind of carried forward a large swath 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.360 of kind of the game industry, which is pretty cottage, right. 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.559 There's a bunch of small players. There's not a lot 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.160 of large corporations in here. Um. You know, in fact, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.439 Wizards is by far the largest, And so you've got 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.400 a bunch of small game companies that are are seeing 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.679 this as a great opportunity to kind of play in 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.640 the big pool, and a lot of them followed suit. 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.240 So obviously the recent we are here today is that 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.680 a paul has been cast recently over what has up 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.200 until now been kind of a lovely thing. Um, Wizards 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:54.160 of the Coast got a new CEO pretty recently, right, Um, 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.439 Cynthia Williams is relatively new. Yeah, And and there is 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:02.280 basically murmuring coming from the company that's like, we don't 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.600 think D and D is properly capitalized. We we believe 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.200 that there's we are leaving money on the table here. 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:10.679 And kind of in the wake of some of that 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.360 stuff coming out, they announced a series of changes to 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.439 the Open Gaming license and if you if you kind 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.640 of want to take it from here and explain because 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.040 I've i've i've I've read and listened to a number 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.840 of different folks. I'm saying like, well, it's not as 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.600 bad as people are are fearing, and some folks saying 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.960 like this would effectively kill a huge chunk of the 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.040 hobby and a bunch of the companies that have grown 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:32.959 up in the wake of the open Gaming license. And 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.480 I'm I'm interested in your take on what what Wizards 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.680 is doing here and what actually kind of is at risk. 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.160 So yeah, I think you you you've in plued into 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.720 the start of this, which was in uh early December 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:53.000 of last year, Hasbro earnings call uh Cynthia basically came 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.400 out and said D and D was under monetized and 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.880 they had been spending the entire previous year really proliferating 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.880 Magic the Gathering, which is their other giant brand, and 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.520 kind of really making a lot of money, like talks 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:10.800 of like it is a billion dollar brand. And UM, 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:12.520 as a result, you know, there was kind of some 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.400 murmurings and some rumblings going through December, UM talking about 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.560 a new version of the O g L. Wizards themselves 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:20.960 came out on December twenty one, so just a few 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.439 days before Christmas and said that a new O g 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.080 L was coming and that it had notes in it 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:32.920 about royalty reporting and um, you know, mentioning that folks 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.600 won't need to pay until later um, and that um 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:38.880 you know, really this new license is only going to 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:41.040 be to make books and PDF. So they said this 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.440 on December twenty one. And the royalty part of that 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:46.880 is was really quite challenging because it said if you 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.080 make over seven thousand dollars a year, um, you might 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.600 have to pay a sizeable percentage of your your your 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:01.240 gross profit. Like and that's terrified, which when you're talking 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.240 about a business and and this is not the gaming 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:08.880 industry does not run on huge margins. Um. No, unless 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.560 you're like making Warhammer models that you're selling for a 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.960 hundred and twenty dollars for a piece of plastic that's tied. Yeah, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.200 the margins are pretty tight. Um. So saying like past 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:23.160 you know, seven k, your company with however many employees, 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.680 has to give a quarter like that, that'll sink people. Yeah. 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.400 I think a lot of companies, the larger ones, couldn't 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:33.160 sustain that, right, I mean I think saying your gross 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.560 over seven just basically means make sure you only make 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.560 seven hundred dollars that year. Um I I do think 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.160 that that is that is a real, real dangerous thing 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.040 to a lot of these businesses. Now, for a lot 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.320 of the content creators, this is never gonna matter. But 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.840 I do believe that part of this was, you know, 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.880 seeing gigantic multimillion dollar kickstarters happening and kind of going, 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:59.040 where's our Yeah, we want a piece of this? Um 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.480 And the answer to that is that, like you know, 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:03.800 and it's problematic just crediting the creation of D and 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.880 D solely to Gary Gygax, but like the people who 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.079 came up with and play tested and made D and 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.320 D a thing, and then the people who iterated and 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.440 changed and evolved it from you know, the original game 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.080 to a D and D um and the years of 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.560 thacco to two three point oh like like morally, outside 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.160 of like what I think is justifiable in corporate law 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.680 and stuff, Like, morally, I think it's fucked up to 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:33.040 say that like some company forever gets a piece of 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.880 that when what it is is like human beings coming 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.560 together to try to figure out the most efficient way 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.360 to run an engine for storytelling. UM, I don't know, 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:45.960 it's it's it's it's fucked up to me to think 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:59.320 about it this way. So they announced this alteration to 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.760 the Open Gaming License, and I'm gonna guess those were 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:08.760 some dark days at the office. So so yeah, you know, uh, 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:10.920 most of us at PISO at that point in time, 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.880 we're kind of on vacation and we kind of just 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:15.760 filed it away and we're like, okay, well it's a 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.720 draft and they're just talking. So um, you know, we 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.600 get to back, you know, from our break and it's 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:23.760 the beginning of the year and this is now January 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.000 five is when a bombshell article drops on Gizmoto by 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.400 CODEGA and they really laid out kind of what was 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:37.640 in this proposed license, apparently having had portions of it 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:42.000 linked to them, and um, you know, it confirmed a 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:47.360 margin but maybe only for for kickstarters, which then got 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:53.680 confirmed by someone at Kickstarter on Twitter. Um. And it 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.840 also included a bit in there that there was a 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.360 clause that said watsy could listen to the coast, could 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.360 use any of the content you create under the license 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:09.720 for free, never having to make pay royalties to you, 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.040 never having to give you any credit. They could just 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.320 take your work, um, and and they phrased it in 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:18.280 such a way that it sounded like it was, you know, well, 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:20.480 just in case we make something similar, we don't want 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.280 to get sued. But yeah, and we're talking about just 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.800 to clarify it for people were not talking about like 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.000 if you introduce mechanics, because again that that's not what 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.240 this is. Kind we're talking about. If you create characters, 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.360 if you create, if you build stories, they have a 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.560 right to utilize that story that you've made things that 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:42.960 are actually copyrightable, right, stories, ideas and expressions are copyrightable. 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:48.320 Um uh, you know, but rules aren't. So that that 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.400 drops on the fifth and on the night the full 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:57.840 draft document leaks and you've got streamers and influencers reading 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.720 it live on YouTube, and this thing just starts to snowball. Um. 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:07.160 And from the ninth forward, things start moving very quickly. Um. 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.160 On the tenth, a number of major kind of third 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.320 party publishers, these are folks who print with the O 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.080 jail um announced that they were not going to go 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.800 with that, and one of the largest ones, you know, announced, yeah, 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:20.520 I'm not doing that at all. I'm going to create 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.040 my entire brand new game. I'm leaving all of this behind, 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:28.200 and the fervor on social media turned into basically a firestorm. 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:33.400 Um it. It's really a sign of how how much 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:38.280 more how many people both love and play versions of 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:42.040 this game that there was so much media attention from 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.600 like major media organs like this. This was not just 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.600 you know, those of us who are into gaming, um, 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:50.920 you know, freaking out over this change the Wizards of 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.000 the Coast has made. This was like, I mean, I 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.560 was seeing it everywhere. Very few things have like broken 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.679 as widely in my media in ecosystem as as this. 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:02.320 There was an article, there was a story about it 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:07.760 today on NPR UM so there was another one. There 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:10.080 was one other important aspect in the league, um that 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.680 I think is really important. One is that the new 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.240 o g L could be canceled at any time with 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:20.360 thirty days notice. And they were claiming that they were 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.639 de authorizing the previous o g L, which up to 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:29.920 this point everyone kind of assumed was irrevocable. Right it had. 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.680 It has clauses in it that say, if we ever 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.240 put on a new version of this license, you can 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.000 ignore it and continue to use this one. Right, but 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.080 it uses this word in there that says you can 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.800 continue to use any authorized version of the license, never 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.600 minding that the contract doesn't mention how you might de 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:53.119 authorize a license. UM. So there there this draft of 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.399 the O g L says that they're de authorizing the 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.119 previous version, which puts all of the work of the 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.960 past twenty years into doubt. And at this point in time, 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:04.920 the fans are revolting right there. There are a lot 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.639 of folks canceling their subscriptions to D and D Beyond, 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:12.119 which is kind of there in house character generation tools 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.320 that you pay a monthly subscription for um. And things 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.600 really start spinning out of hand to the point where 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.159 D and D actually has to respond to it and 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:25.440 pulled back UM and kind of retreat from this and saying, hey, 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.040 we're gonna answer your questions. What you saw was just 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:32.040 a draft um, you know, and UH that was never 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.680 supposed to leak UM. But it was at this point 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:39.480 in time that we actually launched our own license. We 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:41.760 had been talking to some of the other publishers, and 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.919 by that I mean we pizo UH to create a 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.119 brand new safe harbor for folks to publish under. Now 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:49.920 it's a it's a it's not gonna be owned by us. 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:51.240 It's going to be owned by a law firm that 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.520 actually drafted the first o g L. But you started 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.760 to see this giant for happening, um where a lot 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:02.439 of folks are just abandoning ship, And I mean, what 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:07.120 do you think this means? Because obviously Wizards has already 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.399 announced a new version of the of the o g 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.159 L beyond like the one that got leaked, and I 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:16.840 think are kind of in damage control mode. Do you 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:20.280 think this is something that like there is any way 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:21.960 for them to pull back from or do you think 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.119 that kind of the inherent instability of the o g 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.040 L now that they're kind of making these claims at well, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.480 we can actually change the deal anytime we want, has 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:34.720 that sort of irrevocably altered the ground. I think that 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.640 they've damaged a lot of people's trust in them, right. 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:41.920 I think over over the past few weeks, especially when 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:46.000 they went silent and then frankly the first retraction was 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.240 really kind of awkward and filled with kind of like, well, 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:52.800 we didn't lose, we won. This was great. Now we 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:54.919 learned how to make a better license. Right, they're clearly 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.040 stepping back, stepping back, stepping back, and their most recent 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.440 step back, which just happened, you know, on the eighteenth, 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.400 so you know, a week ago or so, basically said 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.080 that they were going to release the core of the 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:12.160 game to Creative Commons and their new license was going 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.399 to be irrevocable and last forever. But it still contains 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.760 a lot of kind of poison pills, things like we 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:22.000 are still the authorizing the first version of the license, 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:26.000 and we have this morality clause that says, if we 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.120 find your content offensive, we can just kill your license 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:34.560 without yea, which is fucked up because I mean, I 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.120 don't think I need to explain why that's fucked up. Um, 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.320 that that puts that puts a lot of the most 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.920 creative kind of projects to at risk like that. I god, 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.240 that's that's ugly. I mean, I don't think anybody in 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.840 this industry wants to see any you know, deeply offensive, 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.159 problematic content. Um, but there's a lot of stuff that 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.520 is frankly a lot more marginal and explores, you know, 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:58.520 issues of the human condition that folks might want to 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.159 explore in a game. Who's to say that someone that 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.000 wizards might go, well, sorry, that's offensive to me. You 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:07.600 don't get to make it. Um. I don't think anybody 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:11.919 wants to invest their creativity and risk their business on 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:16.680 what someone they will never have met thinks of their work. Yeah. 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:19.560 The problem is not that, like I want as the 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:21.880