Ryan Dancey -- Hasbro Cannot Deauthorize OGL

I reached out to the architect of the original Open Gaming License, former VP of Wizard of the Coast, Ryan Dancey, and asked his opinion about the current plan by WotC to 'deauthorize' the current OGL in favour of a new one.

He responded as follows:

Yeah my public opinion is that Hasbro does not have the power to deauthorize a version of the OGL. If that had been a power that we wanted to reserve for Hasbro, we would have enumerated it in the license. I am on record numerous places in email and blogs and interviews saying that the license could never be revoked.

Ryan also maintains the Open Gaming Foundation.

As has been noted previously, even WotC in its own OGL FAQ did not believe at the time that the licence could be revoked.

7. Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?

Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.

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[Reynard]

You need to read it. That's just the 1.0a, it's royalty free. I linked to it.

They were still given a specific license to produce the game.

 

[Steel_Wind]

They were still given a specific license to produce the game.

Maybe. It's not at all clear to me what the arrangement is. It may be that they are an explicit licensee that pays a royalty, etc.. All of that might be true.

But that isn't what that press release says, okay?

 

[Reynard]

Maybe. It's not at all clear to me what the arrangement is. It may be that they are an explicit licensee that pays a royalty, etc.. All of that might be true.

But that isn't what that press release says, okay?

A clarification in the thread under the press release:
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"Hey there Sulla! There are few people who're wondering the same, so just to clarify this^^

Video Games and Rulebooks are not exactly the same, so in order to avoid potential legal issues in the future we preferred to make a deal with WotC now^^ This should alleviate some worries we've seen around, as well as potentially open up new collaborations in the future."

 

[Simplicity]

I mean if they Hasbro were mad about something, it probably wouldn't be Solasta, a game which they have some sort of arrangement with the team. It would be Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, two games which blow Solasta out of the water quality-wise and success-wise, use the Pathfinder system (OGL) and don't have any arrangement with Hasbro at all, but do send money to their competitor.

 

[darjr]

I mean if they Hasbro were mad about something, it probably wouldn't be Solasta, a game which they have some sort of arrangement with the team. It would be Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, two games which blow Solasta out of the water quality-wise and success-wise, use the Pathfinder system (OGL) and don't have any arrangement with Hasbro at all, but do send money to their competitor.

I dint think either of those Paizo video games use the OGL or any SRD material.

 

[Composer99]

Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous are both adapted from published adventure paths for the first edition of Pathfinder RPG, which is an OGL game that is built off the SRD.

 

[Clint_L]

If I was Hasbro I would be most worried about Critical Role, not Paizo. I know CR and WotC have a good relationship that has benefitted both parties, but that hasn't stopped CR from steadily building an empire that, most significantly, has moved very successfully into streaming TV. You can bet that the bean counters at Hasbro look at The Legend of Vox Machina and can't believe that they get nothing from that. And then there's the incredibly successful twitch channel, YouTube channel, shops on four continents, board games, novels, comics, extensive miniatures line, 5e compatible sourcebook not published by WotC...

 

[HomegrownHydra]

If I was Hasbro I would be most worried about Critical Role, not Paizo. I know CR and WotC have a good relationship that has benefitted both parties, but that hasn't stopped CR from steadily building an empire that, most significantly, has moved very successfully into streaming TV. You can bet that the bean counters at Hasbro look at The Legend of Vox Machina and can't believe that they get nothing from that. And then there's the incredibly successful twitch channel, YouTube channel, shops on four continents, board games, novels, comics, extensive miniatures line, 5e compatible sourcebook not published by WotC...

What do you mean by "shops on four continents"?

 

[ChaosOS]

I'm confused why people bring up CR, which has very carefully tread around WotC IP and only uses the OGL for Darrington Press

 

[Clint_L]

What do you mean by "shops on four continents"?

I was wrong; it's only three. Their store now has outlets in Canada, the UK, Australia, and EU, presumably to make it cheaper to ship to fans in those areas. They offer a staggering array of stuff.