Jan. 17, 2023

Capitalism is the BBEG - A Response to Dungeons and Dragons' New Open Gaming License

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Season 2 Bonus

Once again, I’m mad at something I love – or rather, I’m mad at the company that owns it. Once again, it’s Dungeons and Dragons.

About a week ago, a draft copy of the new D&D Open Game License was leaked. Much more restrictive than the Open Game License that currently stands, these changes would hurt the independent third-party creators that built the community that Hasbro is trying to further exploit.

We shouldn’t be surprised.

Submit a character for the podcast: http://characterswithoutstories.com/

For more information:
Dungeons & Dragons’ New License Tightens Its Grip on Competition:
https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634

D&D maker backs off new licensing rules that led to fan revolt: https://www.polygon.com/23553669/dungeons-dragons-dnd-ogl-wizards-of-the-coast-licensing

Music by Ryan Muns, Eyes On The Moon Studios: https://ryanmuns.bandcamp.com
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnTheMoonStudios
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5lkBYvF9wlQPgcwHfvFMZt

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Cover art by The Curiographer
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Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories!

WEBVTT

00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:09.660
Once again, I'm mad at something I love, or rather, I'm mad at the company that owns it.

00:00:05.669 --> 00:02:16.770
Once again, it's Dungeons and Dragons. But as before, I'm proud of the community, the true heart of d&d. About a week ago, a draft copy of the new d&d open game license was leaked, much more restrictive than the open game license that currently stands. These changes would hurt the independent third party creators that build the community that Hasbro is trying to further exploit. We shouldn't be surprised, Hasbro is a corporation. And corporations are explicitly designed to extract wealth from their employees and their customers as efficiently as possible. We can't expect any corporation to act ethically, much less a $9 billion dollar behemoth like Hasbro capitalism is the BBG Hasbro is just a minion short of dismantling capitalism a project that I am in favor of, what can we do about it? In recent days, we've seen an overwhelming wave of criticism about the O GL, we've seen major third party creators turning from making d&d content to creating their own systems. Paizo has teamed up with other publishers to create the open RPG creative license players are seeking out other systems and finding that there's a whole community of TTRPG players waiting to teach them their games. But my favorite response was the call to cancel subscriptions from d&d beyond. I cancelled mine as part of this campaign. It's clear from Wizards of the Coast's response that this strategy hit them where it hurts most their pocketbook. And it worked. For now, when we feel exploited by the things we love, whether that's games, or music, or movies or culture that we consume. It's easy to feel powerless. But I hope that the d&d community feels powerful right now. Because we are more powerful together. Our criticisms are boycotts. Our readiness to turn away from the game we love as painful as that may be, is powerful. We don't know what will happen next.

00:02:13.949 --> 00:02:40.560
Perhaps all of this has changed by the time you hear this or see this. Perhaps we won. That would make me very happy, but perhaps we did it. Perhaps Wizards of the Coast moved forward with their plans after waiting for the outrage to die down. But even if we lost this time, I hope that you can look at what we did as a community with pride. Like I said, when the Hadozee controversy happened.

00:02:40.830 --> 00:03:17.819
Wizards of the Coast can never own the stories that I told with my friends around the table. And they can't take away my love of the game because even with all of its faults, I still love Dungeons and Dragons. I featured a lot of d&d characters on the podcast. I have some episodes about d&d characters that I recorded long before this ever happened. And I will still publish them. I also have some characters for other TTRPG is coming up. And as I say at the end of every episode, if you have a character for a non d&d system, please submit them there's a link in the description below. Once again, thanks for listening and my all your characters find their stories