What's All This About The OGL Going Away?

This last week I've seen videos, tweets, and articles all repeating an unsourced rumour that the OGL (Open Gaming License) will be going away with the advent of OneD&D, and that third party publishers would have no way of legally creating compatible material. I wanted to write an article clarifying some of these terms.

I've seen articles claiming (and I quote) that "players would be unable to legally publish homebrew content" and that WotC may be "outlawing third-party homebrew content". These claims need clarification.

What's the Open Gaming License? It was created by WotC about 20 years ago; it's analagous to various 'open source' licenses. There isn't a '5E OGL' or a '3E OGL' and there won't be a 'OneD&D OGL' -- there's just the OGL (technically there are two versions, but that's by-the-by). The OGL is non-rescindable -- it can't be cancelled or revoked. Any content released as Open Gaming Content (OGC) under that license -- which includes the D&D 3E SRD, the 5E SRD, Pathfinder's SRD, Level Up's SRD, and thousands and thousands of third party books -- remains OGC forever, available for use under the license. Genie, bottle, and all that.

So, the OGL can't 'go away'. It's been here for 20 years and it's here to stay. This was WotC's (and OGL architect Ryan Dancey's) intention when they created it 20 years ago, to ensure that D&D would forever be available no matter what happened to its parent company.

Open Game License v1.0a

What's an SRD? A System Reference Document (SRD) contains Open Gaming Content (OGC). Anything in the 3E SRD, the 3.5 SRD, or the 5E SRD, etc., is designated forever as OGC (Open Gaming Content). Each of those SRDs contains large quantities of material, including the core rules of the respective games, and encompasses all the core terminology of the ruleset(s).

When people say 'the OGL is going away' what they probably mean to say is that there won't be a new OneD&D System Reference Document.

System Reference Documents

System Reference Documents (SRDs) are compilations of Open Gaming Content, usually released under the terms of the Open Gaming License (OGL).

www.enworld.org

Does That Matter? OneD&D will be -- allegedly -- fully compatible with 5E. That means it uses all the same terminology. Armor Class, Hit Points, Warlock, Pit Fiend, and so on. All this terminology has been OGC for 20 years, and anybody can use it under the terms of the OGL. The only way it could be difficult for third parties to make compatible material for OneD&D is if OneD&D substantially changed the core terminology of the game, but at that point OneD&D would no longer be compatible with 5E (or, arguably, would even be recognizable as D&D). So the ability to create compatible third party material won't be going away.

However! There is one exception -- if your use of OneD&D material needs you to replicate OneD&D content, as opposed to simply be compatible with it (say you're making an app which has all the spell descriptions in it) and if there is no new SRD, then you won't be able to do that. You can make compatible stuff ("The evil necromancer can cast magic missile" -- the term magic missile has been OGL for two decades) but you wouldn't be able to replicate the full descriptive text of the OneD&D version of the spell. That's a big if -- if there's no new SRD.

So you'd still be able to make compatible adventures and settings and new spells and new monsters and new magic items and new feats and new rules and stuff. All the stuff 3PPs commonly do. You just wouldn't be able to reproduce the core rules content itself. However, I've been publishing material for 3E, 3.5, 4E, 5E, and Pathfinder 1E for 20 years, and the need to reproduce core rules content hasn't often come up for us -- we produce new compatible content. But if you're making an app, or spell cards, or something which needs to reproduce content from the rulebooks, you'd need an SRD to do that.

So yep. If no SRD, compatible = yes, directly reproduce = no (of course, you can indirectly reproduce stuff by rewriting it in your own words).

Branding! Using the OGL you can't use the term "Dungeons & Dragons" (you never could). Most third parties say something like "compatible with the world's most popular roleplaying game" and have some sort of '5E' logo of their own making on the cover. Something similar will no doubt happen with OneD&D -- the third party market will create terminology to indicate compatibility. (Back in the 3E days, WotC provided a logo for this use called the 'd20 System Trademark Logo' but they don't do that any more).

What if WotC didn't 'support' third party material? As discussed, nobody can take the OGL or any existing OGC away. However, WotC does have control over DMs Guild and integration with D&D Beyond or the virtual tabletop app they're making. So while they can't stop folks from making and publishing compatible stuff, they could make it harder to distribute simply by not allowing it on those three platforms. If OneD&D becomes heavily reliant on a specific platform we might find ourselves in the same situation we had in 4E, where it was harder to sell player options simply because they weren't on the official character builder app. It's not that you couldn't publish 4E player options, it's just that many players weren't interested in them if they couldn't use them in the app.

But copyright! Yes, yes, you can't copyright rules, you can't do this, you can't do that. The OGL is not relevant to copyright law -- it is a license, an agreement, a contract. By using it you agree to its terms. Sure WotC might not be able to copyright X, but you can certainly contractually agree not to use X (which is a selection of material designated as 'Product Identity') by using the license. There are arguments on the validity of this from actual real lawyers which I won't get into, but I just wanted to note that this is about a license, not copyright law.

If you don't use the Open Gaming License, of course, it doesn't apply to you. You are only bound by a license you use. So then, sure, knock yourself out with copyright law!

So, bullet point summary:

• The OGL can't go away, and any existing OGC can't go away
• If (that's an if) there is no new SRD, you will be able to still make compatible material but not reproduce the OneD&D content
• Most of the D&D terminology (save a few terms like 'beholder' etc.) has been OGC for 20 years and is freely available for use
• To render that existing OGC unusable for OneD&D the basic terminology of the entire game would have to be changed, at which point it would no longer be compatible with 5E.

 

[EpicureanDM]

Normally I am ok with attacks on the WotCs, but this is just so random and silly.

All of the executives in charge of D&D are tech company MBA types or video game producers. None of them have any experience in the book publishing industry, let alone with D&D or the TRPG industry. They are wholly ignorant about game design and have little interest in it. Every contributor to this thread has a greater interest in D&D as a game than they do. (I doubt that the executives in charge of D&D even know about this website.)

This OGL stuff reeks of MBAs who have no idea of the history of the game they're in charge of squeezing money from. Every veteran OGL publisher knows the legal realities and nuances that Morrus wrote up. The OGL's relative invulnerability to recision or shenanigans from WotC's end have been understood for more than a decade in the industry. Everyone knows what a PR shitshow it would be for WotC to naughty word with the OGL and the publishers that use it.

Everyone except the D&D executives, it seems. They don't know this stuff about the OGL because (a) they're not gamers and TRPGs aren't part of their lives or interests, (b) they haven't got anyone internally on the D&D team who could talk to them about how trying to mess with the OGL is both difficult and historically pilloried, and (c) they believe that restricting the 6e OGL will boost their business, when it's likely to depress it.

For WotC to try and throw its weight around to strong-arm its third-party publishers is lunacy to everyone who frequents this message board because everyone here as a closer relationship to the game and it's history than the D&D executives. Those executives are MBAs and video game producers. This sort of a move to build a walled garden and force everyone inside makes perfect sense to them. But it's a fundamental misreading of the D&D market, which is a very bizarre little corner of the book publishing world.

Someone leaked this information (or "started the rumor"). Do you think it was WotC? Hell, no. It was probably some third-party publisher who learned something from WotC somehow. It makes total sense that WotC will restrict the 6e OGL as much as they can. D&D's current executives don't look back to the halcyon days of Lake Geneva, 1978 and the company run out of an old house. They come from places like Amazon and they bring Amazon's instincts with them.

 

[EpicureanDM]

I mean, it's so blindingly obvious that history is repeating itself. WotC's going to publish 6e, it will cause a schism in the community, and a new Paizo will bleed WotC's market share with some 5e OGL product. Do you think any of the D&D executives would understand that sentence without it being explained to them? I wouldn't count on the D&D design team to lay it out, since they're the ones who decided to publish a new edition and precipitate this farce.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Can I just say I complain a lot, but this is why I like Enworld and respect @Morrus everyone that has said anything even close to the reverse of what he just told us falls into the shared ven diagram of no legal training and never published under the OGL...

 

[Clint_L]

I mean, it's so blindingly obvious that history is repeating itself. WotC's going to publish 6e, it will cause a schism in the community, and a new Paizo will bleed WotC's market share with some 5e OGL product. Do you think any of the D&D executives would understand that sentence without it being explained to them? I wouldn't count on the D&D design team to lay it out, since they're the ones who decided to publish a new edition and precipitate this farce.

Except, nope, you apparently haven't listened to anything that they've said or read any of the initial playtest material for OneD&D. Because apparently WotC are not idiots, they don't want to create a schism, and so they have explicitly stated, many times, that they are not doing a new edition, that OneD&D is retaining the 5e chassis while simply adding tweaks, much like Xanathar's, Tasha's, etc., and that it will be entirely backwards compatible.

And then they've put out some playtest materials, which are, yep, tweaks rather than fundamental changes, and fully backwards compatible. You could take any of them and use them with Lost Mine of Phandelver and it still works.

What's blindingly obvious is that a lot of players are so stuck in the editions paradigm that they can't imagine anything else and so project their own lack of imagination onto WotC.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

What's blindingly obvious is that a lot of players are so stuck in the editions paradigm that they can't imagine anything else and so project their own lack of imagination onto WotC.

where you are correct there is SOME backwards compatibility it is mostly DM side. I would say a lot like 1e to 2e change over but not like WotC has done an edition change yet.

 

[darjr]

Note Microsoft is not ignorant of Open Source software which the OGL was inspired by. In fact one of the largest contributors to open sources nowadays is Microsoft and Microsofties. So saying they are “computer people” doesn’t mean they are automatically anti open license

 

[Reynard]

All of the executives in charge of D&D are tech company MBA types or video game producers. None of them have any experience in the book publishing industry, let alone with D&D or the TRPG industry. They are wholly ignorant about game design and have little interest in it. Every contributor to this thread has a greater interest in D&D as a game than they do. (I doubt that the executives in charge of D&D even know about this website.)

This OGL stuff reeks of MBAs who have no idea of the history of the game they're in charge of squeezing money from. Every veteran OGL publisher knows the legal realities and nuances that Morrus wrote up. The OGL's relative invulnerability to recision or shenanigans from WotC's end have been understood for more than a decade in the industry. Everyone knows what a PR shitshow it would be for WotC to naughty word with the OGL and the publishers that use it.

Everyone except the D&D executives, it seems. They don't know this stuff about the OGL because (a) they're not gamers and TRPGs aren't part of their lives or interests, (b) they haven't got anyone internally on the D&D team who could talk to them about how trying to mess with the OGL is both difficult and historically pilloried, and (c) they believe that restricting the 6e OGL will boost their business, when it's likely to depress it.

For WotC to try and throw its weight around to strong-arm its third-party publishers is lunacy to everyone who frequents this message board because everyone here as a closer relationship to the game and it's history than the D&D executives. Those executives are MBAs and video game producers. This sort of a move to build a walled garden and force everyone inside makes perfect sense to them. But it's a fundamental misreading of the D&D market, which is a very bizarre little corner of the book publishing world.

Someone leaked this information (or "started the rumor"). Do you think it was WotC? Hell, no. It was probably some third-party publisher who learned something from WotC somehow. It makes total sense that WotC will restrict the 6e OGL as much as they can. D&D's current executives don't look back to the halcyon days of Lake Geneva, 1978 and the company run out of an old house. They come from places like Amazon and they bring Amazon's instincts with them.

Is there any evidence of this or are you just pulling it out of your hat?

 

[Reynard]

I mean, it's so blindingly obvious that history is repeating itself. WotC's going to publish 6e, it will cause a schism in the community, and a new Paizo will bleed WotC's market share with some 5e OGL product. Do you think any of the D&D executives would understand that sentence without it being explained to them? I wouldn't count on the D&D design team to lay it out, since they're the ones who decided to publish a new edition and precipitate this farce.

Lol. WotC isn't publishing a 6E. That's the only blindingly obvious fact. They are shoring up 5E, the incontrovertible best selling and most well received version of the game in its entire history.

Granted, I rate that as "too bad." I think D&D is due for a major revision and I think a 4E level of change (although not one like 4E because i think preferences have changed) would go over fine. But there's no evidence that WotC will do anything besides the safe option, so One D&D will be 90% 5E and everything will flow along unperturbed for a few years until the core audience outgrows 5E and actual 6E will turn everything on its head. And maybe some 5E Pathfinder Frankenstein's Monster will eat WotC's lunch. Who knows.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Lol. WotC isn't publishing a 6E. That's the only blindingly obvious fact. They are shoring up 5E, the incontrovertible best selling and most well received version of the game in its entire history.

Granted, I rate that as "too bad." I think D&D is due for a major revision and I think a 4E level of change (although not one like 4E because i think preferences have changed) would go over fine. But there's no evidence that WotC will do anything besides the safe option, so One D&D will be 90% 5E and everything will flow along unperturbed for a few years until the core audience outgrows 5E and actual 6E will turn everything on its head. And maybe some 5E Pathfinder Frankenstein's Monster will eat WotC's lunch. Who knows.

I agree more or less this will be more a 5.5 or as you sayed "shored up" or updated 5e. I am holding out hope that 6e will someday will make a ground floor rewrite again

 

[MockingBird]

Speculation, I don't think we will see a "shake up the world" edition change. I just see a slow evolution over the years like we've seen so far. Eventually it won't have much of 5e on it. This isn't a "matter of fact this is the way" its just my speculation.