Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
I love 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“4e“). If you don’t, that’s fine, but did, and I still do. During the 4e days, which I consider the best years for organized play, I was one of the primary organizers for Gamers Syndicate game days in the DC area. We organized Living Forgotten Realms games at as many as five sites a month on as many as every weekend each of those months. We also ran D&D Encounters on the weekdays. We got a little time off, but not much. As a result of my efforts, and the rather generous rewards program offered by Wizards of the Coast (“WotC“) that you’ll never see again, I received a lot of free product, so there were very few publications I don’t own. I own multiple copies for many, and some are still in the original wrapping to this day (e.g., the Dungeon Command Sting of Lolth package; several game day, D&D Encounters, and Ashes of Athas adventures). Needless to say, I’ve seen a lot of game play and, you’d think, I’d see it all. Well, nope.
A Little More Context for This Post
In September of 2023, I started hosting 4e games at my house (which I bought primarily so I could easily host games on my own terms). The other primary organizer of the game days I mentioned (Vic) and I created a game world and cosmology (largely based on his own game world), and are serving as alternating DMs for the campaign. Because of how seldom we meet, Vic is only now finishing up his first leg of the campaign, so I’m about to start my first leg at level 4. In preparation for the whole thing, I’ve been cleaning up, and adding to, the Masterplan campaign manager, which we use for running the games. (I know I just said I haven’t had my chance to DM yet, but I’ve had the chance to run my 4e delves based on classic 1st Edition adventures.) I’ve added several libraries for sourcebooks that aren’t part of the base Masterplan product because the author gave up on the project before those sourcebooks were released. At the moment, I’m adding the Dark Sun Creature Catalog library to it. By my count, there are 11 more publications I need to add to get the Masterplan files complete. That said, even when I do, I’ll still have to go back to the existing libraries to continue to clean them up. All my work is available here.
And Finally, My Point
When 5th Edition was announced, I had a conversation with a friend. We both agreed that 4e was ending too soon because there was too much we hadn’t yet done. As gamers plugged into organized play, we knew that we’d be moving on to the next system, and if we didn’t, we’d have no one with whom to play because we knew our gaming friends would be. As I mentioned, I’m currently entering creatures from the Dark Sun Creature Catalog into Masterplan. Despite having played in two 4eDark Sun campaigns during the 4e days, I’m still running into monsters and other material that I’ve never even heard of, and it reminds me of the conversation. Note well that I never played 2nd Edition due to the Satanic Panic, so I imagine anyone that played it would at least have heard of those creatures, but a lot of this material is still new to me, and not just the Dark Sun material. There was just a ton of material that I never got to use. Some of my Shadowfell materials are among those still unopened.
If this sounds like I’m complaining, I’m really not. Despite WotC moving on from 4e relatively quickly, I still have a ton of material from which to draw. Guys like Rob Schwalb and Stephen Radney-McFarland had their dirty little hands all over that edition, so it’s no surprise that the things I’m discovering are really clever and interesting.
Last night, I hosted the 7th session of a 4th EditionD&D (“4e“) campaign that’s being run by my friend, Luddite Vic, but is based on a campaign setting that he and I created (still a work in progress). We’ll be alternating DMing duties, so I’ll get to run and play the game. As always, this led to reminiscing about the 4e days. For example, one of the players is almost finished converting Teos’s Ashes of Athas adventures to 5th Edition D&D. The conversations got me thinking (as always). I know that 4e is probably the most maligned edition of the game. It’s accused of not being “real D&D” by those who constantly complain when others say “you’re playing D&D wrong.” The hypocrisy keeps me from caring about that, but the reality is that it wasn’t nearly as popular as the other editions during each edition’s heyday. Nevertheless, for the Washington, DC area, the era of 4e was, as far as I can tell, the golden era of organized play and was the best the TTRPG community was ever organized.
Vic and I were two of the founders of the Gamers’ Syndicate gaming club that boasted about 250 members. With a lot of help from too many people to list here, we organized gamedays every single Saturday at, if I recall correctly, six different sites. We additionally organized and ran Wizard of the Coast‘s Encounters program at some of those sites one weekday a week. We (and Stephen and Cassandra) put on a convention, synDCon for two years. Nevertheless, I realize my experience is ultimately anecdotal, and I haven’t taken any polls to back up these claims, so take this with a grain of salt.
So, during the 4e era, we had two events regularly occurring every week in Chantilly, VA; Woodbridge, VA; Rockville, MD; Ashburn, VA; and some other spots occasionally. Every event had two to six tables of games being run, but we occasionally ran special events (i.e., battle interactives) that doubled the number of tables. (Somewhere out there is an embarrassing video of me being forced to LARP the introductory scene to a battle interactive. LARPs have never been my thing.) I can’t explain how, but we never turned away a single player. If someone showed up without registering, either Vic or I immediately organized another table and ran it ourselves if no one else could. We always organized with that possibility in mind.
What Edition Warriors Don’t Get
Our success came not only through organizing the 4e living campaign, Living Forgotten Realms (“LFR“), but also by including Pathfinder Society, Greyhawk Reborn, Shadowrun Missions, and Heroes of Rokugan living campaigns in our organizing. I even ran my own 4th Edition Gamma World adventure at one weekend gameday. Community interaction exploded even beyond what we experienced for Living Greyhawk, and everyone was happier for it. I don’t think anyone in the DC area brought TTRPG gamers together more than we did, but even after they formed home games from their new connections, these players still showed up to our events. They were just too much fun.
There were a couple other gaming groups nearby with whom we didn’t coordinate at all. We shared members with these groups, so it’s hard to really know who organized more people, but I’d bet good money we organized more events. We were at it literally every weekend for years.
Fast Forward to Today
This isn’t happening nearly as much today as far as I can tell, and if I’m right, there are at least a few reasons I can think of for the waning of these events. First, to a non-negligible extent, gaming is moving online. Face-to-face gaming, while still a majority of gaming, is slowly being chipped away by modern technology. Second, despite all its PR disasters, Wizards of the Coast (“WotC“) still dictates the industry (and by extension, the community) because they have the most valuable TTRPG trademark, Dungeons and Dragons. Because there are more people playing in general, the need for supporting game day organizers, or even game stores, has diminished. It simply makes less fiscal sense to worry about whether people like Vic and I are putting butts into public play seats. To the extent that’s still useful, WotC is going to rely on conventions, not game days, for organized play, and those are neither cheap nor as personal (but see Winter Fantasy hosted by Baldman Games). The Encounters program and the true DM rewards program no longer even exist, so what’s the point of game store gamedays? Third, this has led to a reduction of the number of game stores, at least in the DC area, so there aren’t a lot of affordable places for large crowds to organize. Fourth, and most importantly, I don’t think anyone was willing to work as hard as Vic and I at putting these events together. As I said above, we had a lot of help, and sometimes those people did an admirable amount of work without compensation, but every single one of them would tell you that they weren’t willing to do nearly as much work that Vic and I did. Today, neither of us has time for that, nor do we have the motivation considering WotC‘s approach, but if someone else did, I think the first three causes I mentioned would be rendered moot. Hard work cures almost all that ails us.
Change is Inevitable
It’s really not like this.
This is largely just an old guy rant, but not in the stereotypical way. I’m not angry. In fact, I’m doing great. I’m hosting a 1st Edition D&D game I run, and I’m hosting the 4e game I mentioned above. I’m getting exactly what I want. As for the newer gamers, if they don’t realize what type of an awesome community we had in those days and and are happy because they don’t know what they’re missing, that’s fine too. I do feel bad for my contemporaries from those days that no longer play because what I’m describing is no longer largely available, but ultimately that’s their choice, and if they’re weren’t happy, they’d make another choice. As long as everyone is happy, regardless of what they’re playing or whether they’re playing, all is well, but if they ever ask me, I’ll make it clear to them that it could be better.
My return to 1st Edition AD&D (“1e“) is now two years strong, and now I’ve added a 4th Edition D&D (“4e“) game to my schedule. So, it was a nice surprise for my friend, Mike, to let me know that he was offloading his old school D&D material. Before you get too excited, he’s giving these materials only to people he knows well because we’re getting them on the honor system. The only cost is to make a (tax deductible) donation to a cat or dog charity that represents the approximate cost to buy them in the store or on eBay. Considering I’m going to get a cat in early April, that’s an easy ask of me.
So, what did I get? First up, the box sets and hard-covers.
Menzoberranzan box set, Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn box set, Greyhawk Adventures, Dragon Lance Adventures, the Scarlet Brotherhood, a reprint of the Second Edition Player’s Handbook, Oriental Adventures, and Dragon #56
In general, I never owned any of these in the day, and I bought the PDF of Oriental Adventures from the DMs Guild during my recent rebuy because the hard cover wasn’t on sale. I’m glad I now have a hard cover without paying through the nose for it. I’ve been intrigued by Star Frontiers based on the relatively recent chatter it’s generated — the less I say about that chatter, the better — so I picked it up out of curiosity. As for Dragon #56, I told Mike I wasn’t interested in any of the magazines except perhaps the one that has the 1e bard in it, redone as a character you can play at 1st level. Sure enough, he had that issue. Score!
Next up, some soft covers.
I was planning to buy the Book of Lairs and Book of Lairs II, so that makes this supplement all the sweeter. I never owned any of these materials either. Now for the minis.
Yeah, that’s quite the haul, ain’t it. Of particular interest . . .
I never owned this guy. In fact, I never knew it existed, and I was quite the mini collector during the 3rd Edition D&D and 4e days. Somehow this one escaped me. Right now, the cheapest I see it on sale is $20 + about $6 shipping, so this one will set me back a bit.
These are just a few of the minis that I’ve never owned.
These are a few of the minis that I own but could always use more of. My players may not appreciate multiple Balors on the field of battle, but them’s the breaks.
One of my Living Forgotten Realms characters had a giant owl, so I was a bit disturbed when the stand for that mini broke. No amount of crazy glue could fix it. Now, I’ve replaced it. I think I took the second one out of some sort of cosmic spite.
Importantly, I have every intention of using these goodies in my 1e and 4e games, so this is quite the haul.
Some animal shelter is going to be very happy very soon.
A while back, I told you I was preparing for a return to 1st Edition AD&D, and to do so, I had to update my stash of 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“1e“) materials. Fast forward a couple of years. I’ve been running a 1e game for the first time in 40 years, and the only addition I had to make to my stash was the Egg of the Phoenix. Now, I’m less than 24 hours away from hosting a 4th Edition (“4e“) game (alternating DM duties with Luddite Vic), finally finishing my unfinished business, but I already have all the 4e stuff I could even need.
On a related note . . . .
Even though I can no longer stand 3rd Edition (“3e“), there were some books that were fantastic that I wish I had never sold. Serpentine Owl, who’ll be playing in the upcoming 4e game, gave me the reprint of Deities & Demigods (in perfect condition with the 3.5e conversion in the back); Erik (who left Twitter/X) gave me Hordes of the Abyss and Tyrants of the Nine Hells (both also in perfect condition); and then Jason (on Twitter/X but doesn’t appear to use it) gave me the Book of Vile Darkness (in pretty good condition). If I had gone through eBay, I would have paid almost as much for those four books as I did for all the 1e reprints I bought combined, but I got them all free.
If you click through the Book of Vile Darkness link, you won’t be able to view it without logging in and removing filters for adult content.
<gears turning>
So, after mulling it over, I realized, “The universe has provided so much in this regard, I think I can justify doing something stupid, especially something that isn’t too stupid.” I went to eBay and purchased the mediocre-at-best Book of Exalted Deeds just to have a match to the Book of Vile Darkness. I don’t know if I’ll ever use the material, but it’s nice to have that matched set, and I didn’t have to pay anywhere near USD$100 to get it. Now, I think my stash is complete, but who knows what I’ll be writing in a year?
I posted this goofy meme across social media this past week.
I received a not-so-goofy response. Long story short, Zephyr the Dream Dragon on Mastodon responded that he’d never want to use wand-wielding conductors as models because he’s worried he’d get sued by J.K. Rowling. Now, I think Zephyr gets it. I think Zephyr realizes that any such lawsuit would be frivolous. But not everyone does, and that’s a huge problem. It also pisses me off.
I’ve had too many conversations with too many people that think the WotC’s open gaming license (“OGL”) and its clones are legitimate licenses. WotC’s OGL is most certainly not, failing on multiplefundamental points, some of which you learn about in the first week or so of Contracts Law class. (Even when they get something right, it’s a potential disaster.) My posts on the ORC raise some doubts, but certainly leave open the possibility that the ORC is a legitimate license (albeit an unnecessary one) under very narrow set of circumstances and making some huge assumptions as to how courts will rule. However, even if enforceable, the ORC misstates the law and contains clearly unenforceable language designed to do nothing else but make you think they’re doing something better than WotC. That dishonesty is the symptom of a larger disease.
All of these gaming companies that are producing OGLs knowing full well that they’re probably not enforceable, and in any event can be done in a better way (public domain).
So, when (for example) both Paizo and WotC claim, implicitly or expressly, that single words can be copyrighted, or even that short phrases can be copyrighted, it’s no small matter. Too many people, whether they understand the ridiculousness of the claim or not, abide by their wishes and self-censor, as do the multitude of those that do believe that to be true.*** That’s utter horseshit. The purpose of copyright isn’t to reward artists for their hard work; that’s just a mechanism to achieve the true goal. The true goal is to give us, the public in general, an environment rich in art. But if copyright is used to suppress the creativity of artists, why have it? In fact, doing so is copyright misuse, but how often is that punished?
*** My point is that, while I can’t fix economic issues that cause your self-censorship, I can certainly fix legal misunderstandings that cause it, but you have to be willing to accept that you’ve been fooled all these years.
What we really need is a cheap tribunal (think small claims court of copyright infringement) that’s not as narrowly useful as what we currently have. People should be able to fight frivolous claims of copyright infringement regardless of their financial means or legal sophistication, and they should be able to do so relatively quickly. That’s far easier said than done, but our system doesn’t even try, and as much as it pains me to say this, if the copyright (or any) system runs contrary to its own purpose for existing, it shouldn’t exist. I don’t want that, because a properly constructed copyright system can be extremely beneficial to society. So, I’d desperately like to see us fix it, and the RPG industry’s misstatements of the law are an unnecessary barrier to that goal.
Here’s something kind of funny. As you know, Wizards of the Coast (“WotC”) has continuously laid claim to copyright over monster names (which is impossible; let me repeat: impossible) or has leveraged their legitimate copyrights to restrict their use (which is copyright misuse). However lacking in legal force as either position is, that’s been their position. Now WotC has released the SRD 5.1 using the Creative Commons licensed, CC-BY-4.0. As Mike Myler pointed out to me, in doing so, many of these names are now expressly licensed even from WotC’s warped perspective. They’re telling you that you may once again state that beauty is in the eye of the beholder because they’re now licensing you the right to use “beholder.”
Seriously. Do you not see how stupid this sounds?
All of this can be found on page 254 of the SRD 5.1. Both pages 97 and 254 include use of “mind flayer,” so that’s now eligible for use. Or is it? Christian Lindke pointed me to a United States federal trademark registration for “Mind Flayer.”
So, by WotC’s arguments that continuously blur copyright and trademark, they can’t even use mind flayer in a sentence. It belongs to a Chinese dude(tte).
Seriously. Do you not see how stupid this sounds?
WotC legal is stupid, or they think you are. Probably both.
Matt Colville echoed sentiments similar to my own as to why Hasbro “surrendered.”
I agree.
I don’t want to diminish the effect rabid gamers had on causing WotC’s about face, but I do want to provide what I suspect is the proper perspective. The lifeblood of any company is acquiring new customers. Existing customers get older, which means they have less disposable income, and eventually die. You need new blood, and that should always be your primary focus. WotC continues to do exceptionally well gaining new customers, and all your rants (and mine) will not impact that one bit. I doubt we have middle-school children reading our blogs and watching our vlogs. If we do, someone needs to call the police.
Chris will do it.
So, if we all abandoned WotC, in the long run, they’d survive, and they know that. That’s at least part of why they continued to resist actual change for so long before their surrender. So, why did they surrender? Because we do have a short-term impact on them, and more to the point, on their partners. The creators of the Dungeons & Dragons (“D&D“) movie(s) and television show were probably overwhelming WotC’s telephone and email systems. Their investments in licensing the brand are short term, and I’m sure those investments were substantial. They demanded this change, and their demands could not be ignored.
Again, I don’t want to diminish your efforts. You made those partners aware of your concerns, and you were going to inflict a lot of damage, but if not for these partnerships, WotC would have stayed the course.
Once Again, a Prediction Sure to Come True
Those relationships won’t last forever, and when they dissolve, we’re sure to be in the same position we are now, but with even less of us complaining due to the attrition I described above. What if WotC creates its own movie and/or television studio? Then they won’t need Paramount+, will they? What then? Will we run to Paizo? As I said in a previous post, Mattel could decide to compete with its chief rival, Hasbro, in the role-playing gaming market. What’s the quickest way to accomplish that? My guess would be they’d buy WotC’s chief rival, Paizo, or perhaps one of the second-tier companies with a proven track record. Whatever open-gaming “license” that acquired company used will be just as vulnerable to revocation, de-authorization, or whatever contract principle you choose to misapply to that non-contract. We may be delaying the inevitable by not actually solving the underlying problem.
So, Is the Problem Solved?
No, but I think it’s close enough. I advise cautious optimism.
You may recall that I demanded that they dedicate their material to the public domain. They didn’t do that, but they’re slapping the CC-BY-4.0 directly onto their SRD 5.1, which is almost what I suggested. Dedication to the public domain is probably no more than a grant of a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license with no restrictions, and that’s almost what CC-BY-4.0 purports to be.
Subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License, the Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material to: 1. reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part; and 2. produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material.
Section 2 – Scope.
The potential problem is that the Creative Commons licenses are similar to (though enormously better than) the OGL with respect to acceptance, and they haven’t been tested in US courts. In fact, they’ve barely been tested in international courts. So, we should still be worried?
For now, no. In order for a licensor (that’s WotC in this case) to win a case for infringement, they’d have to argue that license they provided was horseshit. That’s one hell of an argument to have to make.
WotC: “The defendant infringed our copyright.” Court: “How can you say that? You licensed them the works.” WotC: “Oh, that license is complete bullshit, your honor.” Court: “The license you forced them to use?” WotC: “Yep. Complete bullshit. We suckered them in.”
Warning: Gratuitous use of the word, “asshole,” follows.
This, by the way, is exactly what WotC would have had to do if they were taken to court over the OGL, and they would have succeeded by simply reading my posts to the Court. However, as I said, how CC-BY-4.0 is applied is a little bit better than the OGL. It avoids some of my concerns, and for all we know, it could be upheld by courts for that reason. It could also be upheld because it’s been used successfully in other industries almost since its first publication. Everyone’s been cool about its use. No one’s been an asshole. Therefore, the CC-BY-4.0 gives the gaming community time to adjust and diminish WotC’s stranglehold on the industry.
Of course, their stranglehold will remain unless you’re willing to broaden your horizons and not make matters worse for yourselves.
Not Being Assholes
It’s really easy to allow inertia to take over. We’ve spent so much energy in the past few weeks calling WotC assholes that we could go too far. Many years ago, my cousin, Kessel Junkie, once called me out for a nastygram I wrote to a company that had pissed me off. In it, I informed the company that I was no longer doing business with them. If that were the case, why write the letter? If you want to go, just go. The only proper purpose of the letter should be to get them to change their ways, but if they know I’m a lost cause, my letter will do nothing to effect that change. If you enjoy WotC’s products, then don’t let the inertia put you in that same position.
*sigh*
WotC corporate and legal have behaved as assholes through this entire process. They kept having to go back to the well and make edits because doing the right thing doesn’t come natural to them. They’re definitely not our friends, but we shouldn’t be assholes either. Whatever brought us to this point, this is where we are, and it’s exactly what you wanted, and pretty close to what I wanted. So, there’s no reason to engage in the overstatement that plagues American discourse. There’s no reason to continue to criticize companies for doing what they exist to do: Make money. There’s no reason to continue calling for boycotts at the expense of good people who are the creatives at WotC, or even just the bench warmers so to speak. Those people probably agree with you about their employers’ behavior, but their ability to pay their rent depends on their continued employment. You’ve won, so don’t be a sore winner, but also . . . .
Don’t be Naïve
Whether you realize it or not, your “victory” keeps you in a morass of uncertainty. If you’re okay with that, I’m in no place to stop you. If you choose to ignore the status quo and defer having the rug pulled out from underneath the community, that’s your business. It probably won’t take another 20 years for that to happen, but that still may not necessarily be a bad position for you, just those that follow you. This mirrors our approach to the environment and the economy, passing off future ills to future generations, but the consequences aren’t nearly as dire. They’re just games, and you’ll find others to play if you’re still playing them when this happens again. However, if you want to play the next iteration of D&D, it may affect you as well. All of this applies to 5th Edition, not to “One D&D“. There’s no guarantee that OneD&D will use either CC-BY-4.0 or OGL 1.0. OGL 2.0 may be in the near future after all.
Not My Problem
I don’t really have a dog in this hunt. I don’t play 5th Edition anymore, I own every WotC/TSR product I’ll ever want, and I’m not creating content for others. With my 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons Character Builder functional, that could change if I get it into a suitable form for publication, but the last time WotC threatened me, I told them to pound sand, and they immediately blinked. They can’t harm me because I know they’re full of shit (as are their licenses). I know what I can and can’t do, and I don’t care whether they acknowledge that publicly. But mark my words: This will happen again. Most of you didn’t listen to me the first time, so I don’t expect you to listen to me now, because even those of you that did listen seem happy living in the “open gaming license” hole they’ve dug for you.
History will repeat itself.
But it will happen again, and next time, WotC will have prepared itself to be able to tell you to pound sand. Even if CC-BY-4.0 is used for One D&D and is ultimately deemed legally enforceable, it’ll be another scary time for small-time third-party publishers. I’ll reserve my “I told you so” for that day. Now, I’m off to obscurity and some much-needed rest from meaningful blogging.
While the hubbub over the OGL is finally settling, it inspires yet another video for Mythology Monday. Today, it’s the Greek, Narcissus, the god of vanity and arrogance.
Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, I’m still too busy dealing with preparations for Winter Vantasy. However, I’ve written what will likely be my last post on the OGL controversy, and it’s scheduled for Tuesday. I also expect that to be my last post for a little while. My last streak was over 370 straight days posting, and my current streak stands at 151 with today’s post. I could use a break.
Play What You Want 