The OGL 1.1 is not an Open License

[Hussar]

They will not want their badge in hateful or bigoted content.

I think they’d be nuts not to reserve the right to yank it from publishers.

If not NuTSRs pet Nazi could use it.

I have to admit, I can totally see this being a thing. WotC reserving the right to terminate based on hate speech or the like. Not sure if that's a major issue or not. That does need some VERY careful treading.

 

[darjr]

I have to admit, I can totally see this being a thing. WotC reserving the right to terminate based on hate speech or the like. Not sure if that's a major issue or not. That does need some VERY careful treading.

It is. Also WotCs list of what causes them to yank the license will be their list. Not anyone else’s.

 

[Reynard]

They will not want their badge on hateful or bigoted content.

I think they’d be nuts not to reserve the right to yank it from publishers.

If not NuTSRs pet Nazi could use it.

And so, right or wrong, it isn't an open license. An open license means WotC doesn't have any say beyond the initial stipulations.

You have to remember, the OGL was not designed to protect WotC's good name or even shelter D&D. it was designed to protect D&D from being destroyed by corporate greed. It's goal was to make sure that should poor management or actual malfeasance lead to the death of D&D as a brand, the GAME itself would live on.

It doesn't appear that is what WotC is concerned with regarding the OGL and 1D&D. they appear to be more concerned with getting a piece of the pie when certain kickstarters do really well, and be able to force control over other commercial compatible content. And that's "fine" from a legal and corporate practices standpoint, but it flies in the face of the OGL's actual intent.

The core idea of the OGL was pretty simple: D&D is a culture and a movement and a worldview, far more than it is a product, and the OGL was there to make sure than no one could kill it by making bad business decisions because there would always be someone able to take the essense of D&D (the SRD) and rebuild it. What WotC appears to be trying here -- the same thing they tried with the GSL -- is to circumvent that and say, no, D&D is a product and nothing more. And I hope they fail. I hope they get 100 Pathfinders eating into their sales. I hope Critical Role and MCDM and LevelUp and dozens of Kickstarters eat their lunch and send them packing for it.

You want to know what a "free" D&D looks like: it looks like the OSR. I am not an OSR devotee. i own maybe 3 OSR games. But they way that community has made D&D of a certain era their own, and shared ideas and created a community is EXACTLY what modern D&D needs.

 

[darjr]

One thing. The OSR is vanishingly small.

 

[darjr]

A perspective changing thing just occurred to me.

Imagine you're a licensing person used to looking at things like most of the consumer world. Like Marvel or Halo or Star Wars.

You have an IRON GRIP on the IP. An RPG publisher jumps through a lot of hoops to make an RPG on those licenses. Some of those loops don't make sense to us hobbyists.

I imagine the OGL 1.0 looks like insanity to them.

 

[Reynard]

One thing. The OSR is vanishingly small.

Okay. But it doesn't change the fact that the OSR has allowed a particular version of D&D to thrive after being long abandoned by the owner of that version of the game, and therefore fulfills the actual promise of the OGL. Pathfinder is more recent and did exactly the same thing. Chances are, if WotC reaches too far another community with preserve 5E regardless of what WotC wishes D&D to be.

 

[Reynard]

A perspective changing thing just occurred to me.

Imagine your a licensing person used to looking at things like most of the consumer world. Like Marvel or Halo or Star Wars.

You have an IRON GRIP on the IP. An RPG publisher jumps through a lot of hoops to make an RPG on those licenses. Some of those loops don't make sense to us hobbyists.

I'm not sure what you mean, or what point you are trying to make. As has been stated many times, D&D is not a story. it isn't even a setting. it is a framework. It does not conform the IP licensing the same way Star Wars or Halo does. You can protect The Forgotten Realms the way you can protect the MCU, but not "D&D".

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Go on then. You’ve spoken repeatedly before about how you don’t use third party material, sometimes bordering on offensively. Let’s hear this list of cons against our existence.

I never mean to offend. I respect you, and your site and your work. I am not listing cons against you existence, I am meaning that there is a give and take with the 3pp.
Your right, as of today, and for the last 8ish years we have not used 3pp player facing content (yet we do use 3pp monster manuals and adventures although the adventures are only for inspiration not direct use) But it is a reaction to a LOT of 3pp use in 3e.

In 3e/3.5 we as a group used as much 3pp as WotC stuff... in 4e I bought Arie Marmel's book day 1 (based on only knowing of him on this site) however today we don't.

I will stop posting my opinion of pros and cons if you really feel I am insulting you OR if you think doing so in any way shape or form makes you think that me thinking that you as a company/site/personally should not exist.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I am not a great fan of Pathfinder (having played it for a couple of years), but I cannot by any stretch of the imagination see how it can be interpreted as a negative...

I am not going to defend my stance if it is insulting people. I am sorry

 

[bedir than]

A perspective changing thing just occurred to me.

Imagine you're a licensing person used to looking at things like most of the consumer world. Like Marvel or Halo or Star Wars.

You have an IRON GRIP on the IP. An RPG publisher jumps through a lot of hoops to make an RPG on those licenses. Some of those loops don't make sense to us hobbyists.

I imagine the OGL 1.0 looks like insanity to them.

Yep, even OGL 1.1 will be extraordinarily easy to produce content when compared to the tens of thousands of other licenses out there.

If all they do is allow a badge, requiring it at a certain volume and have a tiny royalty for big money making companies that's actually really open.

Talk to people writing for closed licenses about their struggles. OGL 1.1 is not a closed license, no matter how much people arguing on the internet insist it is.