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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[darjr]

I dunno about downloading everything right now….

But if you have an OGL product that needs SRD stuff on the cusp of release get it out now.

 

[wingsandsword]

On a related note, I'd like to say that this entire "OGL 1.1" crisis has been the most divisive, bitter, hateful, angry, thing I've ever seen in D&D fandom in my life.

Worse than the 3e/4e edition wars. Much worse.

I'm not talking about on ENWorld, which is well moderated, but away from here. On Facebook, on Twitter, on Reddit.

I'm seeing insults, condescension, mocking, and general hostility thrown around casually and constantly.

I think the last straw for me was seeing someone (who claims they're an IP lawyer, but ) go off on Reddit about how WotC blatantly and obviously has complete power to do this, how anyone who says otherwise is clearly not a lawyer or if they are they're incompetent, how any court that would find against WotC on this is wrong and it would be overturned on appeal, and that virtually any lawsuit on this would be won on summary judgement. . .and anyone who would even argue that WotC is wrong here should get an "F- in Contract Law" because supposedly there's no valid good-faith argument that WotC is even possibly wrong here. . .I'm at my wits end.

That was the worst, but there's a lot of it around anywhere on the internet where D&D is discussed

I seriously have never seen this much anger and hatred wrapped up in the gaming hobby. . .ever. The level of rage, insults, hatred, anger, and just plain lack of basic civility being shown here (especially by the people defending WotC on this) is so extreme that it makes the old edition wars look like a schoolyard scuffle by comparison.

 

[Alzrius]

The level of rage, insults, hatred, anger, and just plain lack of basic civility being shown here (especially by the people defending WotC on this) is so extreme that it makes the old edition wars look like a schoolyard scuffle by comparison.

I know this isn't really the takeaway from what you said, but I'm honestly shocked that anyone is defending WotC over this. I mean, not that shocked, because there's always going to be a wide variety of opinions on any given topic, but still...even if you think that WotC has a legal right to do this, who thinks it's a good idea, let alone a noble one? It's a textbook case of the big guy screwing a whole bunch of little guys. Who defends that?

 

[rcade]

On a related note, I'd like to say that this entire "OGL 1.1" crisis has been the most divisive, bitter, hateful, angry, thing I've ever seen in D&D fandom in my life.

Going back to the 1990s I remember much worse flamewars than this one, which has most commenters on the same side.

In 1995 when Sean "Veggie Boy" Reynolds was the face of TSR's effort to introduce a new Internet Policy as a lot of sites containing DND content were driven offline by the company, the heat was volcanic.

There have also been periodic dustups over the treatment of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and the level of credit they deserve.

Edited to Add: Veggie Boy would have quite a perspective on this, having worked at TSR to protect its IP, worked at Paizo to create PathFinder, and worked in recent years at WOTC/Hasbro on D&D licensing.

 

[wingsandsword]

Going back to the 1990s I remember much worse flamewars than this one, which has most commenters on the same side.

In 1995 when Sean "Veggie Boy" Reynolds was the face of TSR's effort to introduce a new Internet Policy as a lot of sites containing DND content were driven offline by the company, the heat was volcanic.

There have also been periodic dustups over the treatment of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and the level of credit they deserve.

None of those are remotely as heated as what I've seen from some corners of the Internet on the OGL 1.1 story.

Also, no, most commenters aren't on the same side on this one. . .away from ENWorld at least. I've seen plenty of people on Facebook and Reddit who are vehemently, intensely on WotC's side here. Twitter is more anti-WotC in its consensus.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I know this isn't really the takeaway from what you said, but I'm honestly shocked that anyone is defending WotC over this. I mean, not that shocked, because there's always going to be a wide variety of opinions on any given topic, but still...even if you think that WotC has a legal right to do this, who thinks it's a good idea, let alone a noble one? It's a textbook case of the big guy screwing a whole bunch of little guys. Who defends that?

There seems to be a contingent of folks who don't care about 3PP, and therefore believe this issue doesn't affect them.

 

[overgeeked]

There seems to be a contingent of folks who don't care about 3PP, and therefore believe this issue doesn't affect them.

Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of people treat a lot of things in the world.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I know this isn't really the takeaway from what you said, but I'm honestly shocked that anyone is defending WotC over this. I mean, not that shocked, because there's always going to be a wide variety of opinions on any given topic, but still...even if you think that WotC has a legal right to do this, who thinks it's a good idea, let alone a noble one? It's a textbook case of the big guy screwing a whole bunch of little guys. Who defends that?

I suspect most of the people defending wotc now are diehard contrarians who are compelled to always take the opposite position to the majority, now matter how unreasonable that makes them.

 

[overgeeked]

None of those are remotely as heated as what I've seen from some corners of the Internet on the OGL 1.1 story.

Also, no, most commenters aren't on the same side on this one. . .away from ENWorld at least. I've seen plenty of people on Facebook and Reddit who are vehemently, intensely on WotC's side here. Twitter is more anti-WotC in its consensus.

Reddit’s mostly on side with the OGL and 3PP. Even the main r/DnD sub has several pro-OGL 1.0 posts with hundreds or a few thousand upvotes. All the other smaller subs are also opposed to WotC’s shenanigans.

 

[wingsandsword]

Reddit’s mostly on side with the OGL and 3PP. Even the main r/DnD sub has several pro-OGL 1.0 posts with hundreds or a few thousand upvotes. All the other smaller subs are also opposed to WotC’s shenanigans.

Not from what I've seen. I've been shouted down way too many times on too many D&D-related subs for simply saying that WotC is on poor legal grounds to cancel the OGL. . .I've had enough self-proclaimed lawyers scream at me that I'm unfollowing everything D&D related on Reddit after this.