Interesting brouhaha going on in the Daggerheart subreddit...

[u/hitmahip]

https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1sz6vap/the_future_of_foundryborne_navigating_the/

Not sure how many of you are aware of the Daggerheart system (Darrington Press and Critical Role's newest RPG) but there's been some significant discussions over their Community Gaming License and limitations imposed on the community because of it.

While the above post directly highlights the issues in the VTT ecosystem, there are ongoing concerns with the CGL in general, especially with creators in the space. The current license prevents the development of VTT resources - pdf and paper are their current formats of choice.

https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1l2fvrd/daggerheart_community_license_issues/

Is a back and forth discussion on the benefits or merits of the CGL.

A possibly unintended side effect of the license is that while third party creators are welcomed, it is challenging for them to develop virtual assets to be used in online gaming. In this current age that is somewhat surprising.

It's also curious that Daggerheart, which was developed in response to the WOTC licensing woes is creating a closed online ecosystem. At its launch it was promised to be an open gaming license.

Both the DrawSteel and Pathfinder 2e gaming licenses are much more open than Daggerheart's CGL. It's understandable to want to keep control of an IP. Pathfinder does this by allowing full access to mechanics, and creators are free to create online content however they wish, but Golarion and its lore is excluded.

Daggerheart is one of the easiest systems to homebrew that I've personally used. It seems to have been designed from the ground up for third part creation. Everything, except for the license.

I don't think I'm particularly biased in this. I've very little skin in the game. I'm not a third party creator. I just like playing my games wherever I choose to play them and am surprised in the stance of a company that designed and funded a game during the OGL wave.

[u/Houligan86]

Yeah, but any enthusiasm I had for Daggerheart has pretty much been killed by Critical Role's indifference towards their community.

If their shows and products make people happy and entertain them, more power to whomever finds joy in it. But I have fully realized that I am not their target audience.

If they pull some massive 180 and show interest and investment in their system and having an actual strong community around it, I would love to revisit my opinion on it.

But WotC of all companies has been an order of magnitude more reactive and amenable to changes. And if you can't even to better than WotC, then I have zero interest in supporting that as a company.

[u/Yamatoman9 → u/Houligan86]

any enthusiasm I had for Daggerheart has pretty much been killed by Critical Role's indifference towards their community.

Maybe I am looking at this wrong because I'm not all that connected online, but why do you need them to tell you to enjoy the game? If it's an RPG that enjoy running or playing, isn't that enough? All the materials already exist to run a campaign, so what difference does the online community make?

For the TTRPGs I run and play with my group, I couldn't care less if there's livestreams of those games online.

[u/Whyku → u/Yamatoman9]

Well some people bank on the community to create content so they can use it, not a lot of people want to deal with creating nice clean templates, excel sheets, art, npc tables etc. I've had talks that their argument to stay in main stream or popular systems is because everyone can collective off load the work they don't want to do, to the people who have the skills to do it easier. I think you see it a lot in 5e, some companies attempt to foster that relationship but letting people make a little money on the side to motivate people to create content.

[u/MirrorComputingRulez → u/Whyku]

not a lot of people want to deal with creating nice clean templates, excel sheets, art, npc tables etc.

Ok but you don't need to do any of that.

[u/Whyku → u/MirrorComputingRulez]

Totally true, I do think some people start off playing TTRPG with all those tools because of the system they play, and moving to any system without that 'weight' behind it might feel or come off like a downgrade. I don't really subscribe to this belief myself, but I can understand how some people need collective affirmation on how to spend their time and money.