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.

 

[Reynard]

Just as a clarification to me: I don't really like the OGL, to be honest. I think sometimes it's a broad stroke to protect items that shouldn't be copywritten in the first place. But it often makes me feel like I can't call a priest a cleric, a swordfighter a warrior, or a magic user a wizard, because this is all in the SRD. These terms have been used interchangably for centuries, long before DnD even existed. I may not have read things right, because honestly, it just makes my head hurt. So I sit here paralyzed, wanting to create content, but without the restrictions of the OGL, as it wouldn't even refer to anything in it to begin with. Yes, I understand I can have a 'gremlin' or other common creatures based on mythological sources, but I can't use the SRD to describe it, even if I intended to use gremlins as they are defined in the SRD. For beginners, the OGL is more of a nightmare, and just makes things harder to decipher, IMHO.

I don't actually understand what is being said here. Are you unhappy that you can't create a 5E compatible game with a class called "swordmaster" or whatever? Because you certainly can.

 

[Kannik]

At the risk of being uncharitable, I feel like saying "Must we? Again?" This unfortunately seems to be becoming a cycle, with the same 'WotC is summoning the dark riders to come and take your fun away and steel your cookies too' mongering (about the decades-old OGL no less). Must be a slow self-monetization day for them or something.

 

[Morrus]

Just as a clarification to me: I don't really like the OGL, to be honest. I think sometimes it's a broad stroke to protect items that shouldn't be copywritten in the first place. But it often makes me feel like I can't call a priest a cleric, a swordfighter a warrior, or a magic user a wizard, because this is all in the SRD.

You don’t understand what the OGL is.

If you are interested, you can read it in its entirety. It’s not long and is in fairly plain English. At no point does it say you can’t call a magic user a wizard.

 

[Clint_L]

Agreed. Must we assume ill intent, all the time? In general, WotC has been quite open to third party publishers, while still protecting their own core IP.

 

[Morrus]

The OGL forces the user to respect WotC's "product identity" restrictions, which seems to be a big deal for them. There's the motive.

If the motive is “don’t say ‘Forgotten Realms’ in your book but you can freely reproduce a thousand pages of text we wrote” the I guess, sure. I mean, who cares? The designated PI is like a dozen words. But sure. Conspiracy theory proved?

 

[Clint_L]

I think the core issue here is that a lot of folks are having trouble wrapping their head around the idea that OneD&D is not a new edition, so Wizards don't necessarily feel that an updated OGL is urgent.

 

[darjr]

I think the core issue here is that a lot of folks are having trouble wrapping their head around the idea that OneD&D is not a new edition, so Wizards don't necessarily feel that an updated OGL is urgent.

Oh my! Yes this.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

If I recall correctly, when the first retroclones appeared, some gamers who were also lawyers set up companies (Necromancer Games, maybe? It's been a long time) to produce them. The argument was that because so much of the terminology is the same, and since the OGL says anything derived from OGC is also OGC, rebuilding AD&D as OSRIC was perfectly within the bounds of the OGL. And once OSRIC was OGC, other retroclones could follow because they, too, were derived from OGC.

However, not everything in the OSR is released under the OGL. But that's where the copyright thing comes in.

One thing I find frustrating is people and companies that use the OGL but then try and hold back any innovations as "product identity." I feel that goes against the spirit of the OGL.

Your last point is well made; part of the point of the OGL is to bring your release "under the fold" as a product which can then inspire and contribute to other projects by other people. You might refrain from including specific IP content (you can identify under your own product's OGL listing that, for example, specific setting names or creatures of unique design are your non-OGL IP), but if, for example, you make a really decent ruleset for something like ship combat and others want to use it, your embracing the OGL lets them do so. So really, as much as the OGL lets people publish D20/D&D compatible content, its just as important that it lets your own contributions go into the pool of shared ideas for others to work with as well.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

That's true, although there are less restrictive ways to share original work such as releasing it under Creative Commons or even directly into the public domain.

But the advantage of the OGL is it provides a community framework for a very specific type of product (D&D/D20 compatibility) with protections for specific IP while allowing the sharing of other content that creative commons simply won't ever achieve. Creative Commons is great for an individual creator or for someone with a product/content that operates in its own conceptual space, but you won't be able to make an OGL-equivalent product with it that meets the criteria and allowances of the OGL (imo, ianal, ymmv).

 

[Morrus]

I think the core issue here is that a lot of folks are having trouble wrapping their head around the idea that OneD&D is not a new edition, so Wizards don't necessarily feel that an updated OGL is urgent.

Just to reiterate, the OGL won’t get updated. It’s been the same for 20 years. It can’t be rescinded.