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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[Mecheon]

Doesn't match what I've been seeing. Mind most I see over at Reddit is 'oh the poor WotC, the mean Hasbro is making them do this!' which, yeah, nah, its just WotC

Most folks arguing the pro WotC stance tend to get downvoted to oblivion from what I can see

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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

I mean If you could guarantee every writer/creator could bounse right back get a new creative job as good or better and not miss a beat, I would agree.
If no one was going to get hurt(and I don't mean fans) I would think "oh well some good stuff will be lost but we can go on"

If someone doesn't know anyone that works on games (and I'm counting if you talk online and know there name) and they only own 1 or 2 books (most likely all from wotc) they are correct, it will not effect them... of course they then don't care about people it IS effecting (and again I don't mean fans I mean employees)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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.

this is my experience too... I am see a lot of "they can" on reedit

 

[wingsandsword]

Didn't they have a story about killing the golden goose?

I think quite a few of us have white collar stories of a VP taking over and they'd rather ruin proven processes or get rid of people who tell them "That can't work due to X or we can do Y if you give us more resources" too often.

They use the chaos to claim they made more profits and then get promoted and gone in two years.

That's the real tragedy here.

The Hasbro exec that has doubtless mandated this is doing it for some short-term gain that he hopes will help his career. Inside 2 or 3 years he'll be on to a new position and D&D will be a distant memory.

. . .the industry he trashed on the way there however, will suffer the harm caused for decades to come.

 

[MoonSong]

I mean we have had "what if they took out the OGL" threads on here since 4e. SO no it's not that nobody thought they could it's that popular opnion was it would be hard to not possible.

I never said it wasn't possible they change the fan policy, I said there is no reason to assume they will and worry about it now. So far the new OGL isn't fully open and isn't as generous as the old... but it still allows for 80-90% of creators (those making less then $750k a year) to keep on going with only a little change.

I work 40-50 hours a week, my fiancé is closer to 40-42 and just picked up a side job for 8-10 more hours (at better pay) starting next week. My mother lives with us and gets both retirement, social security AND a pay out from and IRA (mandatory min pay outs) if you add all 3 of us together we don't make 750k a year. If you add my friend who works at a comic shop, and my friend that works at Walmart in to make 5 of us (even though we don't live together) we don't make $750k a year. (TBF I did choose the lowest paid friends not the highest there)

There are problems. There are REAL victims, including the guy who makes it possible to have this conversation... you a fan with some fan works are NOT the victim here. People could lose there main source of income over this. Keep that in mind.

You know that a publisher selling $750k a year is lucky to take home $70k of that? Margins are thin, and this isn't the only problem. The main problem is that NOBODY will be able to keep giving ongoing support to older editions of D&D and games that were OGL and there isn't anybody left with the power to relicense them?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I work 40-50 hours a week, my fiancé is closer to 40-42 and just picked up a side job for 8-10 more hours (at better pay) starting next week. My mother lives with us and gets both retirement, social security AND a pay out from and IRA (mandatory min pay outs) if you add all 3 of us together we don't make 750k a year. If you add my friend who works at a comic shop, and my friend that works at Walmart in to make 5 of us (even though we don't live together) we don't make $750k a year. (TBF I did choose the lowest paid friends not the highest there)

This is absolutely disconnected from reality.

The costs on many TTRPG Kickstarters are 80-95% of the revenue. Especially the ones which do numbers! Can you explain why you didn't consider that?

If 5 of you are making $750k/pa between you you're making insanely more than the Kickstarter! That's $150k/pa average! Hell even your "lowest-paid" friends are earning nearly 3x the US average!

 

[Tazawa]

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.

It may be a good idea to make your Section 15 Copyright Notice as broad as possible so that you are not just licensing from WOTC, but are also sub-licensing from other contributors.

The Level-Up license (Open Game License | Level Up) would be a good place to start, as it incorporates foundational content from Paizo and Necromancer. Consider adding:

• The Hypertext SRD
• Green Ronin's True20 SRD
• Darrington Press' copyright notice from Tal'Dorei Reborn
• Troll Lords' copyright notice from Castles & Crusades
• The OSRIC copyright notice
• Any others you have access to

This could help if you intend to continue to produce open game content under OGL 1.0a after WotC attempts to 'un-authourize' it. If they remove their SRD, are your works derived from WotC open game content or the other contributors'?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You know that a publisher selling $750k a year is lucky to take home $70k of that?

yes I do... infact I am a book keeper/accountant and understand EXACTLY what it means... lucky to take home 70k I am sure half or more of those look at that as a pipe dream, because they aren't near it.

I did the math out a few times, and even have a thread about it. The fact that the % is crazy and not even close to a standard contract is boarder line insane...

Margins are thin, and this isn't the only problem.

and those margins will be forced to be smaller. If every publisher is smart they would end up having to publish less and hope to either make the numbers work or come in under the 750k.

The main problem is that NOBODY will be able to keep giving ongoing support to older editions of D&D and games that were OGL and there isn't anybody left with the power to relicense them?

this I don't mind. If every edition had a end date I would be fine with it (even wanting more 4e support)

 

[Micah Sweet]

yes I do... infact I am a book keeper/accountant and understand EXACTLY what it means... lucky to take home 70k I am sure half or more of those look at that as a pipe dream, because they aren't near it.

I did the math out a few times, and even have a thread about it. The fact that the % is crazy and not even close to a standard contract is boarder line insane...

and those margins will be forced to be smaller. If every publisher is smart they would end up having to publish less and hope to either make the numbers work or come in under the 750k.

this I don't mind. If every edition had a end date I would be fine with it (even wanting more 4e support)

Every 3pp's end date, no matter how new on the scene, shouldn't be January 13th.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

yes I do... infact I am a book keeper/accountant and understand EXACTLY what it means... lucky to take home 70k I am sure half or more of those look at that as a pipe dream, because they aren't near it.

I did the math out a few times, and even have a thread about it. The fact that the % is crazy and not even close to a standard contract is boarder line insane...

You need to explain why you gave the example you did, then.

Your example makes absolutely no sense at all if you understood this before you posted it. Your example only makes any sense at all if you were assuming that a $750k KS mean the creators taking home (pre-tax) $750k, because your examples were all of pre-tax incomes. It's okay to make a mistake, but it's best to admit them. If you think you didn't make an error and in fact had a different point re: $750k, what was it?