Re: WOTC tries to claw back the Deck of Many Things

On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 11:59:02 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

>
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https://www.geeknative.com/172570/did-wizards-of-the-coast-refresh-their-deck-of-many-things-trademark-before-releasing-dds-srd-5-2/
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https://thaumavore.substack.com/p/i-drafted-a-legal-argument-against
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So it seems that WotC with their response to the widespread criticism
about their license changes released a lot of things under a Creative
Commons license, and now with the release of SRD 5.2 they are trying to
get some parts of it back. (specifically they are trying to refresh
trademarks for the Deck of Many Things and the Orb of Dragonkind, which
mind you, still are in the SRD, but renamed to Mysterious Deck and
Dragon Orb)
>
I wonder how that all will shake out for them.

Not well.

I'm actually surprised they left the Deck in the SRD to start with,
both in names and mechanics. It seemed unique enough -in character and
mechanics- that it should have been left out from the start (then
again, they also left in the (renamed) Apparatus of Kwalish and Sphere
of Annihilation... or the Bag of Holding, for that matter, all of
which I might have cut in favor of leaving in only generic +1 Swords
and ordinary Potions of Healing).

But having put these items into the SRD, they are there forever. At
this point, all WOTC/Hasbro wants to do is reclaim the names, and
under ordinary circumstances I'd be all for that. As I said, I think
they are unique enough that they deserve them but it's too late for
that. They were careless to release them to the public in an earlier
SRD, and that's a one-way road. Even if you argue that users of SRD
v5.2 aren't granted rights to that name, they can just snag that right
from SRD v5.1, yank the name, and apply it to an SRD v5.2 game.

I don't think this was an intentionally malicious ploy of WOTC;
doubtlessly somebody saw the name "Deck of Many Things" in the SRD and
said, "Ooh, that's not right, that's our trademark, must've gotten in
there by accident" and updated the name to something generic. (It's
what they did with the Appartus of Kwalish, which was renamed
'Apparatus of the Crab'). Then -if somebody else mentioned that it was
already in SRD v5.1, they just hoped nobody else would see it. I
suspect it was more covering-ass than an intentional clawback of
legally surrendered rights.

But it's been seen, and WOTC/Hasbro needs to admit fault, eat crow,
and not fight this in court. If they do, THEN it becomes malicious in
my eyes.

Unfortunately, Hasbro is a US company, and the current trend in that
country seems to be supportive of legal maliciousness, so I don't
expect them to give up willingly.