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.

 

[Alzrius]

So who at "WotC" met with the third-party publishers? Probably the business development guys, the folks responsible for revamping the OGL so that it works harder for WotC. These are the lawyers and MBA-types, not the D&D designers. Again, not people with real professional networks or experience in D&D publishing.

This is a few years old now, but wasn't Sean K Reynolds the guy at WotC who was supposed to be focusing on third-party outreach? Though I confess I'm not sure if he's still there.

 

[Reynard]

This is a few years old now, but wasn't Sean K Reynolds the guy at WotC who was supposed to be focusing on third-party outreach? Though I confess I'm not sure if he's still there.

As a reminder: the OGL was built to allow WotC to off load "not-profitable-enough" work onto 3rd parties -- to control and monetize the Role Aids market. It has worked amazingly for decades, helping D&D grow and diversify. There is no way on Earth they are going to throw that away, especially after testing the waters with the GSL and finding it full of sharks. WotC doesn't want to hobble 3rd parties because they don't want to pay staff to create 32 page adventures or run magazines, even though they know these things feed the D&D machine.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They don't know how much we make, I can assure you.

they can't be sure. BUT they MAY (notice lots of conditional phrasing) have a team that has a pretty good guess. In some fields I have seen subsets of accountants that back engineer from public (I have never personally seen it go beyond that but I have been told it has) information draw up charts and estimates on what competitors are making and costing. I have even seen companies MUCH smaller then HASBRO make choices to undercut competitors for very petty reasons.

Now having said all that, and having worked with companies that do and don't do these thing, I would be surprised if WotC cares what you or anyone else makes.

 

[EpicureanDM]

This is a few years old now, but wasn't Sean K Reynolds the guy at WotC who was supposed to be focusing on third-party outreach? Though I confess I'm not sure if he's still there.

I don't think he's been there for a long time.

There is no way on Earth they are going to throw that away, especially after testing the waters with the GSL and finding it full of sharks. WotC doesn't want to hobble 3rd parties because they don't want to pay staff to create 32 page adventures or run magazines, even though they know these things feed the D&D machine.

No one making decisions today about D&D and the OGL has meaningful knowledge of, or experience with, how the GSL impacted the game and community. They do not understand the history of the game or its culture. They aren't tech hippies in the mold of Peter Adkison or Ryan Dancey, dreaming of open source utopias in 1999.

Is it a mistake for D&D's leaders to make OGL 1.1 more onerous and less attractive? From a PR standpoint, of course, but these decision makers don't have any meaningful connection to the D&D community. They don't care about their reputations with the community.

From a financial standpoint, I don't think it moves the bottom line very much. I don't think the DM's Guild produces a meaningful amount of revenue for D&D. Adding a royalty for the Top 20 third-party publishers might bring in...$2 million in a good year for third-party publishers. That keeps a few WotC folks employed, but doesn't really push the brand to new and dizzying heights of revenue.

Can the D&D team and OGL 1.1 replace any revenue lost from third-party sources sticking with older OGLs? They must think that they can. We don't know how WotC's going to monetize OneD&D, but they must believe in their little, MBA hearts that they can replace, say, $2 million in lost OGL revenue from the inevitable edition schism. Remember that there are senior WotC leaders selling this plan to each other. There must be some internal narrative where they're telling themselves that this is all going to work, and that they're going to make more money. These new executives with no prior experience in book publishing, the TTRPG market, and game design have convinced themselves that this is all going to work out fine for them.

Maybe they're right! But if they are, it will be because they "threw away" what people think "feeds the D&D machine." And if that ends up working out for them, then they really didn't throw out anything of value.

 

[Reynard]

No one making decisions today about D&D and the OGL has meaningful knowledge of, or experience with, how the GSL impacted the game and community.

You don't think these people did their due diligence and study the history of the massively profitable IP they have been tasked with making more profitable than ever. Lol. They aren't Musk.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don't think he's been there for a long time.


No one making decisions today about D&D and the OGL has meaningful knowledge of, or experience with, how the GSL impacted the game and community. They do not understand the history of the game or its culture. They aren't tech hippies in the mold of Peter Adkison or Ryan Dancey, dreaming of open source utopias in 1999.

Is it a mistake for D&D's leaders to make OGL 1.1 more onerous and less attractive? From a PR standpoint, of course, but these decision makers don't have any meaningful connection to the D&D community. They don't care about their reputations with the community.

From a financial standpoint, I don't think it moves the bottom line very much. I don't think the DM's Guild produces a meaningful amount of revenue for D&D. Adding a royalty for the Top 20 third-party publishers might bring in...$2 million in a good year for third-party publishers. That keeps a few WotC folks employed, but doesn't really push the brand to new and dizzying heights of revenue.

Can the D&D team and OGL 1.1 replace any revenue lost from third-party sources sticking with older OGLs? They must think that they can. We don't know how WotC's going to monetize OneD&D, but they must believe in their little, MBA hearts that they can replace, say, $2 million in lost OGL revenue from the inevitable edition schism. Remember that there are senior WotC leaders selling this plan to each other. There must be some internal narrative where they're telling themselves that this is all going to work, and that they're going to make more money. These new executives with no prior experience in book publishing, the TTRPG market, and game design have convinced themselves that this is all going to work out fine for them.

Maybe they're right! But if they are, it will be because they "threw away" what people think "feeds the D&D machine." And if that ends up working out for them, then they really didn't throw out anything of value.

I wonder, if they DID have a magic bullet that could shut down the OGL if it would hurt them at this point

 

[Reynard]

I wonder, if they DID have a magic bullet that could shut down the OGL if it would hurt them at this point

I think that the existence of the OGL and 3PPs continues to do the job it was created for: providing stuff to the community that WotC doesn't care to produce (stand alone short adventures being a good example).

Eliminating it would create negative fan response with little apparent benefit. I can see some suit looking at the current state of Kickstarter money and feeling greedy and emboldened, but there's technically nothing stopping WotC from using KS now. If WotC did a Planescape or Darksun KS it would absolutely unquestionably be the biggest TTRPG Kickstarter ever. But they haven't and apparently don't, so the couple million the last big KS got must not bother them too much.

Where WotC probably sees lost revenue is VTTs, since they don't have one. I imagine when they launch theirs, Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds may be hoping Wotac doesn't alter the deal further...

 

[EpicureanDM]

You don't think these people did their due diligence and study the history of the massively profitable IP they have been tasked with making more profitable than ever. Lol. They aren't Musk.

Of course they didn't. They're both career managers and executives from tech companies. They each received promotions in title from their prior jobs, which is how they keep score. They'll move on in a couple of years to new jobs. [EDIT: "Both" refers to Cynthia Williams and Dan Rawson, but the same logic could also apply to the guy who replaced Winniger, who seems to have spent his career in video games before suddenly becoming the head of the D&D design studio? Again, this guy was promoted over Crawford and Perkins, two guys with long experience in the D&D business. There's something weird about that.]

Besides, if they had done their due diligence and studied the history of D&D, do you think they'd be excited about steering their "massively profitable IP" into the same waters that created a massive schism in the fanbase and the rise of Pathfinder? Everyone on this thread, on this message board, and across the Internet with actual experience of D&D's history keeps pointing out how similar, past strategies by WotC (under different management) utterly failed.

So your contention is that the D&D leadership team has both done enough due diligence and study of D&D's business history to know that the stuff they're trying now looks like stuff that's failed in the past AND they've decided that the stuff that failed in the past now has a good chance of making D&D more profitable than ever?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think that the existence of the OGL and 3PPs continues to do the job it was created for: providing stuff to the community that WotC doesn't care to produce (stand alone short adventures being a good example).

Eliminating it would create negative fan response with little apparent benefit. I can see some suit looking at the current state of Kickstarter money and feeling greedy and emboldened, but there's technically nothing stopping WotC from using KS now. If WotC did a Planescape or Darksun KS it would absolutely unquestionably be the biggest TTRPG Kickstarter ever. But they haven't and apparently don't, so the couple million the last big KS got must not bother them too much.

Where WotC probably sees lost revenue is VTTs, since they don't have one. I imagine when they launch theirs, Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds may be hoping Wotac doesn't alter the deal further...

Hasbro has it's own kickstarter (I backed transformers and GIJoe stuff on it) I think it is called Haslab

yup it is Transformers Generations HasLab Deathsaurus
I wonder if they would use that instead to cut the middle man fees

 

[Reynard]

Of course they didn't. They're both career managers and executives from tech companies. They each received promotions in title from their prior jobs, which is how they keep score. They'll move on in a couple of years to new jobs. [EDIT: "Both" refers to Cynthia Williams and Dan Rawson, but the same logic could also apply to the guy who replaced Winniger, who seems to have spent his career in video games before suddenly becoming the head of the D&D design studio? Again, this guy was promoted over Crawford and Perkins, two guys with long experience in the D&D business. There's something weird about that.]

Besides, if they had done their due diligence and studied the history of D&D, do you think they'd be excited about steering their "massively profitable IP" into the same waters that created a massive schism in the fanbase and the rise of Pathfinder? Everyone on this thread, on this message board, and across the Internet with actual experience of D&D's history keeps pointing out how similar, past strategies by WotC (under different management) utterly failed.

So your contention is that the D&D leadership team has both done enough due diligence and study of D&D's business history to know that the stuff they're trying now looks like stuff that's failed in the past AND they've decided that the stuff that failed in the past now has a good chance of making D&D more profitable than ever?

Look it is possible these people are greedy evil twits, but I'm inclined to think maybe we don't have all the information yet and they are probably trying to balance profits with customer satisfaction because that's the route to sustainable growth.