#OneBookShelf

[scormey]

A mostly digital future?

Note: I’m writing this a month in advance, but I doubt the Trump Trade Wars have gotten any better by the time this is published, so… Let’s face it: Everything sucks, especially in the Tabletop Roleplaying scene. It doesn’t matter if you are a big publishing house, or a small indie developer, Trump’s trade wars with, well, everyone else, have made doing business very difficult. Paper is more…

[gwenthebard]

Are you a fan of Historical Fashion?

Are you looking to make sure your Call of Cthulhu character is in the style of the day?

Do you want a primer for 1920s fashion?

You should check out my Miskatonic Repository projects- The Bloodmoon Guide to Fashion: 1920s

[dungeonmalcontent]

Every now and then I'll check to see if I have any downloads for the month on DMsGuild. Usually start and end of month (depends on if I forgot the month before). And every so often someone will have just done basically all of my pay what you want titles for a penny each. And I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. It feel very mildly insulting in a way--you could have paid nothing and that's fine, but you paid something and it was the absolute minimum you could have. But also, sometimes people don't have more than pennies to spare. I know I've been there where cash is super tight but I still want to show support. And, moreover, when the price is one penny, I get the whole penny. DMsGuild takes 50% from every sale (probably the most of any onebookshelf platform). But they can't split a penny (I mean, they could, but they aren't that pedantic).

Anyway, I guess cheers to the one or two people that gave me a couple pennies. I hope you enjoy my writing and forgive the novice-ness of my early stuff.

[dungeonofthedragon]

Onebookshelf Charity Bundles

I have been reading up on the process of creating a product bundle for charity (in this case, Medical Aid for Palestinians.)

There are a few steps but it seems fairly straightforward. Would any of my fellow DriveThru creators be keen to get in on this? The process is described here!

Hoping to get a few folks onboard before contacting the publisher service rep and getting the ball rolling. I'll be contributing both Illambria and Cosy Wilds.

(if such a bundle is already in the works (for either DriveThru or DMsGuild), I'm keen to hear about that too so we can combine forces instead!)

[retroactivebakeries]

And here is a tabletop rpg you can use to play that god:

here's a random word generator--whatever word it gives you is now the thing you are the deity of

[yellowmagicalgirl]

After 2.5 long years, I'm finally graduating with my master's! When this posts, I will be sitting at my commencement ceremony, listening to speeches and hoping that at least one person has decided that their speech is trivial and should be left as an exercise to the audience.

If you want to get me a graduation present with a monetary value, consider throwing money at one of my DM's Guild products. One's $9.99 for 31 subraces, one's $1.10 for 11 statblocks, and three are pay-what-you-want premade character sheets with 4-7 variations on the same character for each. Also feel free to buy whatever else you'd like from DM's Guild or one of its sister sites, since the link I gave is an affiliate link, and thus I'll get a portion of the profits that would otherwise go to OneBookShelf or WotC.

[artmann100]

Weird-Out Wednesdays! Do you need to portray a wizard that has gone too far, or maybe a demon or a spirit...Well, whatever she is, she creeps the hell outta me! Perfect for any horror, fantasy, or occult conspiracy game!

[cannibalhalflinggaming]

Transit: The Spaceship RPG is a Powered by the Apocalypse game where the players take on the roles of Artificial Intelligences - control starships, manage organic crews, and explore the interstellar frontier! Available in PDF and Print-on-Demand.

[cavegirlpoems]

this DnD? run by this WotC?

This was actively WotC's doing. This wasn't OneBookShelf (the platform WotC uses for 3rd-party content) that pulled curse of hearts; OBS is pretty well known for refusing to pull even extremely open and explicit queer and sexual content. I can personally verify this because *I* sell much more graphic work on OBS's other store-fronts.

No, this was Wizards Of The Coast's call. The publishers of Dungeons & Dragons made an active decision to have a high-profile gay adventure removed from their 3rd-party store front, justifying it as 'too sexual'. Curse of Hearts is mildly racy, its art less lacy than plenty of depictions of women in official D&D artwork currently for sale, and wildly less explicit than plenty of other mainstream ttrpg work for sale elsewhere (such as vtm).

I need to stress this. It wasn't an automatic or algorithmic decision by the platfor DMsGuild uses, because OBS does not censor works like this. This was a deliberate choice made by D&D's creators in response to an overtly gay D&D module becoming prominent.

@sparklypepper This is your 'queer D&D, a publisher that uses their dominance of the marketplace to actively, deliberately censor prominant queer voices.

If you want to give credit to big companies for queer representation, go look at games that actually walk the walk, such as Vampire the Masquerade, or the many many overtly queer indie games. Not the game whose publisher deliberately chooses to suppress queer takes on their game.

People have objected to the comparison between D&D fans and gaylors in terms of imagined gayness but like. I'm sorry babes, but the gayness of D&D literally is imagined.

D&D has queer representation in its art and fiction, this is true. Does that representation actually matter for the sake of the themes of the game and its gameplay, as presented in the game? No. You can decide that your elf is gay, and hey, who wouldn't, but the game will just stare at you blankly and not do anything with that information. It's literally fluff in the same sense that your character having blue eyes or being left-handed is. As written the game has nowhere to go with from that information.

But even more so, the thing that inspired that post was people insisting that D&D's gameplay and fiction does somehow interface with queer experiences and is, actually, meaningfully about the experiences of a queer found family and sorry I'm not going to mince words here but that part you straight up did hallucinate.

[chaotic-hypnotic-erotic]

A reminder that DoubleZero exists. Get it now, and you'll receive the new r3 once it comes out, for free.

[beefsen]

The cover for my TTRPG module for OSE, which you can buy here!:

[scormey]

https://scormey.com/2023/08/asimovs-4th-law-loot-mechanics-336/ AI-derived content on DTRPG and Roll20 are now banned. This is great on the surface, but has some creators a bit upset. We discuss this and some Kickstarter drama with “Urban Shadows 2nd Edition”, on today’s show!

Intro (0:49) – Beoulus talks “Baldur’s Gate III”, and Scormey had another health scare.

Tabletop Gaming (5:31) – OneBookShelf (parent company of DriveThruRPG and Roll20) have banned AI content. Let’s discuss.

Wrap (23:40) – Fuckery is afoot at Magpie Games’ “Urban Shadows 2nd Edition” Kickstarter!

[jeffs-gamebox]

Interview Declined

My ongoing quest to bring you the truth has hit a bit of a snag. Roll20 politely declined my request for an interview. There are still so many questions about Wizards of the Coast and OneBookShelf that remain to be answered.

Roll20 has declined my requests for an interview. I have been trying for while now to get in touch with someone at OneBookShelf about an interview. I want to ask about the WotC D&D marketplace and the future of the DMsGuild. I’ve had some other questions since the OGL crisis that are just burning, too. At least they finally got back to me yesterday. (Friday, May 12.) While this is not a huge…

[theonyxpath]

Vampire fans! Have you ever wanted to publish your own By Night setting book? Or cover a bloodline in-depth? Or perhaps you’ve been working on some Vampire fiction and would like to share it with others? Now, how would you like to be able to sell it? Welcome to White Wolf’s Storytellers Vault, now live! You’ll be able to publish your own material from any one of VTM’s current editions: First Edition, Second Edition, Revised Edition, and the 20th Anniversary Edition.

White Wolf Entertainment and DriveThuRPG Launch “Storytellers Vault”, a Creators Content Program for Vampire: The Masquerade

Stockholm, Sweden – August 11, 2017

White Wolf Entertainment, creator of the World of Darkness and Vampire: The Masquerade are partnering with DriveThruRPG to allow independent content creators to publish material set in the World of Darkness using the Storytellers Vault.

For over a quarter century, fans of the World of Darkness have aspired to bring their own unique World of Darkness creations to the masses, and now they can as part of the Storytellers Vault, White Wolf’s new creator content program. Beginning with Vampire: The Masquerade, aspiring writers, artists, and game designers can publish their non-canonical table top RPG supplements and fiction stories worldwide in the language of their choosing, and making half of the revenue as their royalty. To assist content creators making the best possible products, Storytellers Vault offers a considerable variety of graphical layout tools including pre-made design templates, and art-packs to choose from.

“World of Darkness fans have always shared their stories with the world, and now is the time we help them to do that in an even greater scale” says CEO Tobias Sjögren. “The magic of the Storytellers Vault is supporting fans that love and want to create content from all eras of our games, we can’t wait to see what they produce and how everyone enjoys it!”

The Storytellers Vault features:

Self-publish service for table top RPG material set using any of the four previously published editions of Vampire: The Masquerade

Content creators themselves set the price for the material they publish and receive 50% of the revenue

Access to over 15 templates and art packs produced helps content creators make their work look as professional as the official products from any set era

Publishing in any language supporting the vast global World of Darkness community

Additional content supporting other game lines and historical settings in the White Wolf catalogue will be progressively unlocked beginning in October 2017

The Storytellers Vault is now available at http://ift.tt/2v6PQmk.

About White Wolf

White Wolf is a licensing company focused on creating the best participatory brands in the world. Since its original entry into the roleplaying game market in 1991, White Wolf’s World of Darkness has grown to be one of the most recognized and successful brands in the hobby game space with collective book sales in excess of 10 million copies during this time. White Wolf’s World of Darkness brands, which include Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Orpheus, has been licensed for television series, console and computer video games, interactive media events, and a myriad of merchandise and other entertainment products. www.white-wolf.com Contact: press@white-wolf.com

About DriveThruRPG

DriveThruRPG.com is part of a family of premiere online marketplaces including RPGNow, DriveThruRPG, DriveThruCards, DMsGuild, DriveThruComics, DriveThruFiction, and Wargame Vault. Together, we have been selling digital and print-on-demand comic books, roleplaying games, and fiction since 2001. As of 2016, we have launched multiple community content programs as well as our Community Card Creator for fans to create content for some of their favorite roleplaying and card games. www.onebookshelf.com Contact: matt@onebookshelf.com

[canigetacupofugh]

What even is OGL?

TLDR: OGL stands for Open Game License and is a public copyright license that allows people to use certain parts of the game system- most notably the mechanics.

It was supposed to be irrevocable and permanent at LEAST for the editions made before and up to it's inception. It is also why/how D&D is the game that you have heard of and not something more generic.

It was actually a brilliant business plan hatched by a man who understood the product, and supported by others that also understood how much they'd come to owe a happy community for the success of the game.

Let's talk about it!

A "Brief" History of Open Gaming - or, How WotC is Shitting on 20 years of a good thing -

Waaaay back in 2000 WotC released the first OGL for D&D 3.0. This was awesome because it meant that there was a nice legal way for people to essentially share their home brew - rules, settings, modules, entire campaigns. It took away the fear of lawyers and placed a chunk of the rules in the creators hands and said, "Here, so long as you follow the rules, you can use this part."

Ryan Dancey, the person who started the negotiations for WotC to buy TSR in the first place - the original owners of D&D - was the person running the show back then and he believed that the way to have D&D be a business success was to have a thriving creative community.

"I think there's a very, very strong business case that can be made for the idea of embracing the ideas at the heart of the Open Source movement and finding a place for them in gaming. One of my fundamental arguments is that by pursuing the Open Gaming concept, Wizards can establish a clear policy on what it will, and will not allow people to do with its copyrighted materials. Just that alone should spur a huge surge in independent content creation that will feed into the D&D network."

And boy was he right! See, the idea here is that if they open up their system (Known as the d20 System) then players learn this system across several genres/settings making it a standard.

Content creators were happy, the D20 System became a standard, everybody (mostly) happy. They even won over a lot of the Grognards who weren't happy with the changes being made to D&D.

Dancey understood the product they were selling.

When 4th came out in 2008 they released the GSL - Gaming System License. It was more restrictive than the previous OGL and like WotC themselves predicted, the community largely ignored 4E (Side Note - 4th is actually my favorite system and it makes me sad that greed ruined it), or even outright shunned it and we saw the brith of Pathfinder - under the OGL, they used the 3.5 ruleset and essentially made their own D&D - with blackjack, and hookers! Several of the people at Paiso used to work for WotC and genuinely believed in Open Gaming and working WITH content creators.

The GSL was, in Andy Collins words, "a Frankenstein's monster of an open license that ended up pleasing basically nobody."

There was less content made by 3rd parties, so instead of a new system having your usual Grognards who just didn't like change, and the people who tried the new system and didn't like it, you added a whole swath of people who were also mad that WotC had changed the rules they said they wouldn't - and since the old OGL was still active for previous editions, they just didn't hop on board the 4th Edition train.

In 2016 we saw a return to the old OGL and they even added another option for content creators - The Dungeon Masters Guild storefront - which allowed people to make content for specific WotC owned settings (creators set their own price, but WotC and OneBookShelf took 50% of proceeds).

In August 2022 rumors started that the OGL was in danger again, aaaand you're probably reading this because you've heard about or seen the new OGL 1.1 leaks and the backlash that is occurring.

Until WotC actually makes official statements on all this, everything is alleged and plenty of people are covering the leaked document and what it might/does mean so you can find that elsewhere (this is already long-winded!) but I'll give my thoughts on the topic. My personal thoughts/opinions - It's pretty easy to ignore some of the new OGL when you see things like you have ot make $50,000 on your product for WotC to want it reported or $750,000 for them to want royalties (at 20-25%, ouch!) because they're going after people who are making some money and can maybe afford it - I even kinda get it - they see how their property has become a household name and want to find ways to make even more money off of it. They want a slice of the pie these 3rd party creators are baking. I get that. And if it was like 4.0 where the old OGL still stood and you could just keep making content for that system and ignore the new system- then I wouldn't care.. but this is much worse. They want to walk back a license that they told people would not be revoked. That people have made a living off of. They also want to be able to just poach your ideas from what you make and not have to share any pie with you - as an artist, ownership of my own IP is something I value.

The thing is, while WotC might own D&D, they didn't CREATE it. This is a huge faceless company that doesn't care about people. They are not your friend and they have shown their hand - they didn't learn the correct lesson from 4th, or see that we as a community were forgiving them with 5th - they just see money and want to squeeze us all for everything we got. They don't understand their product or the community and they want to not only take, take, take, but if we let them, then we set a dangerous precedent that licenses that are supposed to be irrevocable can simply be torn up, and that they can just take your hard work and keep it for themselves.

Now, I don't think they can actually legally revoke the OGL 1.0 - but if they do somehow, that's no bueano for more than just TTRPGs, and isn't it bad enough that they're trying to? Is there really ANYTHING they could do to save this? I'm pretty open-minded, maybe some gesture exists, but I can't imagine it right now.

If you read all that, thank you! Here's a silver lining for you - Paizo is releasing their own ORC - Open RPG Creative License that they are entrusting to a law firm to keep it open. Read more about it HERE

[spaceshipsandstarwyrms]

Spaceships & Starwyrms is proud to be a part of this charity bundle! Proceeds go toward firefighting efforts in Australia and the bundle is full of great stuff! #AustraliaFires #fightfirewithgames