WotC Rumor: OGL will not be supported starting with One D&D

[bedir than]

I explained to a player once that TSR killed D&D during the lifetime of 2E and WotC buried it.

Apparently now WotC wants to dig it up and have it cremated instead.

D&D is more popular than ever, by at least one order of magnitude. It's not dead. It's thriving.

They pretty much closed things off during 4E, and I don't see that worked to their benefit. If they rope 5E off from 3rd party, that's just pure stupid greed on their part and it will hurt them more than anything else.

Either the 2024 version is backwards compatible and the current OGL/SRD is valid or it's not.

 

[Morrus]

Unless they radically alter the core terminology and make it non-compatible with the existing game, I can’t see how this makes a difference. All the core terminology is open and has been for 20 years. Horse, barn door, and all that.

(I guess it might affect people who want to reproduce the core rulebooks in another format, but not 3PPs who want to make compatible material).

I’m not worried.

 

[CleverNickName]

Roll20 support will pretty much determine how much/little of the new edition* I buy. I'm not sure if that counts as "third party" or not, but I'm sure it's in the same ballpark.



*don't call it a new edition. It's totally not a new edition, wink wink.

 

[DND_Reborn]

D&D is more popular than ever, by at least one order of magnitude. It's not dead. It's thriving.

It is just the undead now... don't be fooled by a facsimile of life. ;-)

 

[darjr]

Would that end the sale of all third party products currently on DMSGuild or just prevent new ones from being released?

DMsGuild isn’t OGL. And even if it was they can’t rescind the old OGL.

 

[Scribe]

Would seem to be a completely unnecessary misstep, if true.

 

[JEB]

Would that end the sale of all third party products currently on DMSGuild or just prevent new ones from being released?

This sums up the difference between OGL and DM Guild products: https://support.dmsguild.com/hc/en-us/articles/217520927-Ownership-and-License-OGL-Questions

 

[darjr]

Would seem to be a completely unnecessary misstep, if true.

And an ineffective one. Pointless.

 

[JEB]

And an ineffective one. Pointless.

Worse than ineffective - it might dissuade some third parties from supporting the current edition, and maybe even encourage another Pathfinder. (Not as likely this time around, since there were other factors during 4E, but still...)

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

New leadership, old mistakes?