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...

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.

audit-3929140_960_720.jpg

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.


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.


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.
 

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Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
“nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose.”

Bold added by me.

Setting “that content” to mean content released under the OGL.

Would the uses be subject to the same limitations imposed by the OGL? That is, would their republication be only possible with the OGL still attached?

Removing that attachment seems big.

Second, are any uses allowed? That would give Hasbro many more rights to the work than the originator retains. That also seems big.

TomB
You could use OGC for any purpose before as long as you attach the OGL. There are no prohibited uses in the OGL v1.0a. You can make an OGL ice sculture if you want. WotC can make an OGC ice sculpture of my new OGC feat. I mean, I don't know why they would, but they can.

What uses are we envisaging WotC might use it for that they couldn't under v1.0a? The only thing I can think of is that they don't have to attach the OGL to the content. Which, honestly, isn't a big deal to me.

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of things wrong with this license. But that particular thing I think will turn out to be very similar to the current situation. At least, I hope so!
 

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In all fairness, I've never seen a licensing agreement based on profit. They're all based on revenue. Of all the things in that license, that particular item is pretty much standard (though the rate is very high).
I agree, it would be abnormal (Like college class theoretical not real) to make it based on profit because that is manipulatable (I don't want to go into detail but I CAN) but normally there is some consideration of the profit... if someone has a profit margin of 7-10% you don't want to give them a license for 25%.

I have seen people buy RPG books whole sale (and ran those books) the best case the store gets a 55% discount on cover price and the worst I have heard of was a 18% off cover and that store owner would not carry that product.
FYI Board games and minis are all between 40 and 50% less then SRP too...

I bring this up becuase Piazo isn't selling your FLGS pathfinder 2e for 59.99.... they are selling it for $27-$30 most likely, I don't know the overhead for piazo, I don't know the cost of shipping, and I don't know the general overhead... but I am betting that $27 is NOT half profit... I would not be suprised to find out it's close to thee 7% range... so $2,maybe $3. I bet that amazon gets a better deal so buying it through that gets Piazo less...

If they have to pay 20% over $750k and someone figure that is about5-6% at or around 1 mil so allbooks at whole sale have to go up to cover that... and that would not be great.
 

Alzrius

The EN World kitten
I don't know if there was a payment, but I do know there had to be an agreement other than the OGL.

In licensing open content via the OGL, the licensee agrees to not use Product Identity (which includes "product and product line names"). Monster Manual 2 explained what they were doing and named the source product (Creature Collection) and publisher (apparently not PI). WotC could not do this under OGL alone, therefore they must have had a separate agreement.
They also didn't correctly list the Creature Collection under the Section 15, and their declarations of Open Game Content and Product Identity barely qualified as such (being a single notice saying that "except for pages 221 and 222, nothing in this book is Open Game Content," or something to that effect).

Which is to say that it's more likely that there wasn't a specific license, but rather that WotC simply didn't know how to use their own license correctly. White Wolf (owners of Sword & Sorcery Studios) likely didn't file suit against them because they didn't want to get into a slugfest with an eight-hundred-pound gorilla...especially since they already had an ongoing license with WotC to publish Ravenloft 3E materials and probably didn't want to jeopardize that.
 

kjdavies

Adventurer
Almost nobody using OGL 1.0 releases the entire work as open game content. The norm is for only a small portion to be OGC. For this reason, OGL 1.1's "Hasbro gets to use your whole work nom nom nom" is extremely different than OGL 1.0's "anyone gets to use the portion of your work designated as OGC that isn't Product Identity."

(I only know of a few products from the early days where the entire text was OGC -- the first Green Ronin Freeport supplement and AEG's Good and Evil supplements.)
Expeditious Retreat had some, there are some very crunch-heavy books out there from other publishers (Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary comes to mind, both editions) that would have almost PI, and so on. As I recall, the entirety of Green Ronin's True20 is OGC except the trade dress and some of the graphics.

Almost all text in the Pathfinder hardcovers is not only OGC but until 2016 or 2017 (when Liz Courts left Paizo) they regularly put more or less the whole books (with PI removed) into their Pathfinder Reference Document (PRD) site. The softcovers often had more PI (the APs and setting splats especially), but the hardcovers after the core rulebook were often made by aggregating the OGC from the splats. Paizo made their OGC really easy to get at, and most of their big books were almost entirely OGC.
 

delericho

Legend
Which is to say that it's more likely that there wasn't a specific license, but rather that WotC simply didn't know how to use their own license correctly.
Indeed. An awful lot of people got the license wrong the first few times they used it. :) And, by and large, it was just ignored, except for egregious cases.

Edit to add: Of course, that was the case then - 20 years ago. Times have changed - as @Morrus says in the next post, best make very sure you get it right now!
 
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kjdavies

Adventurer
This has been a very illuminating discussion and I've learned a lot. Thank you everyone for taking part and sharing your wisdom, knowledge, and weird interpretations :) with me.

I see several ways this might turn out: how I hope, how I think it should, how I think it will, and how I hope it doesn't.

It's like worrying about the weather: I believe I cannot do anything about it, so struggling to predict it is not bringing me peace, it is stressful.

Instead, time to put my energy into deciding what I will do if it is sunny, if it is cloudy if it rains, and if it snows.

(bowing out of the conversation... thanks all!)
 

Rabulias

the Incomparably Shrewd and Clever
Soooo....what about "use that content for any purpose" doesn't mean "we can use any content you create for whatever we want"?
As bad as I think the 1.1 OGL sounds to be, this is not new. The OGL 1.0/1.0a allow this. How do you think Pathfinder got created? They took the OGL content from the SRD and made their own whole game. Lots of companies reproduced a part or all of the SRD content into their own material. This is nothing new.

I think seeing the excerpts from the 1.1 document out of the context of the full document is leading to confusion. I am 99% certain that @Morrus has the right of it - that the content that can be used in any way is specifically what you declare to be Open Game Content in your material, just as it is in 1.0 and 1.0a.
 

Rabulias

the Incomparably Shrewd and Clever
They also didn't correctly list the Creature Collection under the Section 15, and their declarations of Open Game Content and Product Identity barely qualified as such (being a single notice saying that "except for pages 221 and 222, nothing in this book is Open Game Content," or something to that effect).
While they did screw up section 15 in Monster Manual II as far as I can tell, the pages themselves were fairly well marked. Those pages did not use the trade dress appearance of the rest of the book. Compare here:
ogcpage.jpg

Additionally you can see they had a whole section filling the bottom half of that first page talking about the Open Game License, and they had a vertical line of text (that you can also see above) up the side of each page that says: "The game text presented on pages 220 and 221 is considered Open Game Content. The artwork is property of Wizards of the Coast and cannot be reproduced without permission."
 

Alzrius

The EN World kitten
Additionally you can see they had a whole section filling the bottom half of that first page talking about the Open Game License, and they had a vertical line of text (that you can also see above) up the side of each page that says: "The game text presented on pages 220 and 221 is considered Open Game Content. The artwork is property of Wizards of the Coast and cannot be reproduced without permission."
Ah, I'd overlooked that vertical text, though there's still no notice of Product Identity (the closest being the aforementioned notice about most of the book having no Open Game Content on the credits page).
 

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