Battlezoo Shares The OGL v1.1

Battlezoo, the YouTube channel which shared the initial leak of the new Open Game License, has shared the PDF of the OGL v1.1 draft which is currently circulating. This draft is, presumably, the same document obtained by Gizmodo last week. It's not currently known if this is the final version of the license.

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[dagger]

Or Savage Worlds, Fantasy Age (the new version is coming out within next couple of months), Barbarian of Lemuria/ Legendsof Steel, BASH! Fantasy, Tinyd6, EZd6, ... or one of several other games.

New version of Rolemaster is out, and more core books to drop this year, that's what I am running. Also playing in a Savage Worlds Pathfinder game, its pretty dope.

 

[Greg K]

It also seems to be that this is exactly in the company's history, going back to the early 80s at least - to swing a big stick at people using their system, in much the same way even Back In The Day, I found it weird the NPCs in the City-state of the Invincible Overlord had hits-to-kill instead of hit points, or some various other skirt-arounds

Mayfair's Roleaids and Bard Games's Compleat Books had something similar if I recall correctly

 

[Greg K]

New version of Rolemaster is out, and more core books to drop this year, that's what I am running. Also playing in a Savage Worlds Pathfinder game, its pretty dope.

I used to play RM. I am big on Savage Worlds, but I also like several of the games that I listed (Fanatsy Age, Barbarians of Lemuria, BASH! Fantasy, Tinyd6)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

None of what I just read seems all that unreasonable to me. And yet, "everyone" seems to be furious. What am I missing?

I mean, the key points are, that the conventional reading of this is:

A) The previous OGL 1.0a is "de-authorized". You can never again make a product using the OGL 1.0a.

This obviously goes DIRECTLY against 20 years of how WotC has said the OGL 1.0a worked, including 5E. Ryan Dancey has been very clear that the deauthorization was never an intended possibility. It's also not clear if it actually works, legally.

So that would cause a huge problem for pretty much all 3PPs.

B) Open Gaming Content no longer exists in 1.0a.

You can never share anything again. The entire point of the OGL was OGC. But they delete that concept, and you automatically share everything only with WotC.

C) The only SRD allowed to exist is the 5.1 SRD. No other SRDs are allowed, nor is anything based on them allowed. So even if Paizo signed this, PF1 has to never have another book published for it - not by Paizo, not by anyone.

D) With 30 day notice, they change any of the terms of this licence, to whatever they like (!!! yes for real).

E) They want 20-25% of REVENUE above $750k. Most 3PPs have a profit margin less than 25%. This means a 3PP could actively losing money on sales above $750k per year. That's about 20 companies according to WotC's estimates, but it actually seems like it might be a bit higher. And it's a great for ensuring none of those companies can ever grow. WotC do smarmily say if you repeatedly bang into the $750k bar, they may decide to give you a better licence.

F) A bunch of other stuff, including what @Haplo781 posted.

The one chink of light here is that, despite WotC's comments implying this isn't opt-in, it may be that in reality, it does operate on an opt-in basis. WotC went to great lengths to obscure that, though, if so, and have had since Thursday to say something about it.

Even if it's opt-in, it's GSL 2.0, because it has a poison pill - if you make 5E content, you can never make any other OGL content.

The tone is definitely bizarre, even for “plain language” commentary. Seems like they’re trying to intimidate the reader into taking action, and to sound casual and relatable at the same time. The result is just weird and off-putting.

Like I said days ago, they're going for "How do you do, fellow kids!" but they're far too corporate and menacing to pull it off.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Start with these

I've seen that kind of stuff in legal documents before. Isn't some of that stuff in the original OGL?

AFAIK that kind of stuff only matters when things between the Licensee and the Licenser break down entirely (usually with much fault on both sides) and doesn't really hold up compared to whatever the individual legal issue is.

Or in other words, aren't all of the bits you've posted unlikely to ever matter for nearly everyone using the license?

IANAL, though, perhaps obviously.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Now to be clear. Is the the actual OGL 1.1, confirmed and from on high, or is this an unofficial (possibly draft) version of the document?

As the entire internet seems to have an opinion on this, it would be nice to actually start debating a real document, rather than one that could literally be changing as we speak.

Its confirmed by Kickstarter, so it's very real, but there is still a chance for WotC to back out of this disaster, not unscathed, but before they completely destroy One D&D & 5e, it's still not fully released.

Smart move is to replace Cynthia Williams with Ray Winninger as WotC President, and tell everyone OGL is dead and add irrevokable to the OGL 1.0.

 

[Amrûnril]

Dude, read the document.

I'll link you the relevant bit:

"The actual license is available through the hyperlinks below, and if you’re comfortable with legalese (or somehow actually enjoy reading legalese) feel free to jump ahead to those links. We’ve included explanations and examples alongside the legal language to help make the OGL easier to understand and comply with. You can get to those comments by clicking the link after each section. If on the other hand you would like to start with a in plain language of how the OGL works, you can start here with the FAQ section. In addition to that, we have included a set of comments in the license itself that accompany the legal language and provide explanations and examples to help make the License easier to understand and comply with. You can get to those comments by clicking the link after each section."

Please don't speculate on what something might say when you can just look at the thing.

I'm not speculating about what the document itself says, just the context and intent with which it was presented to recipients.

My understanding is that the large 3rd party publishers sent the 1.1 document under NDA were also sent custom licensing agreements. I don't know if this has been definitively confirmed, but it's certainly consistent with the procedures suggested in part V of the commercial license. If the intent was for those publishers to sign custom agreements, and the OGL document was provided merely as "context" (i.e. a threat towards those refusing to sign), then the OGL document (including both the commentary and the legal language) wouldn't need to be in the final form intended for public release.

None of what I just read seems all that unreasonable to me. And yet, "everyone" seems to be furious. What am I missing?

Even if the agreement were reasonable starting from scratch (as @Haplo781 notes, it isn't), it wouldn't be reasonable for WotC to impose it on content that it's spent the last 20 years promising will be freely and perpetually available.

 

[Charlaquin]

Smart move is to replace Cynthia Williams with Ray Winninger as WotC President,

Well that’s not going to happen, since Winninger left the company.

and tell everyone OGL is dead and add irrevokable to the OGL 1.0.

That would certainly be the thing that would appease 3rd party publishers and the fans who are upset about this. I’m not convinced WotC is going to perceive it as the smartest move though.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I mean, the key points are, that the conventional reading of this is:

A) The previous OGL 1.0a is "de-authorized". You can never again make a product using the OGL 1.0a.

This obviously goes DIRECTLY against 20 years of how WotC has said the OGL 1.0a worked, including 5E. Ryan Dancey has been very clear that the deauthorization was never an intended possibility. It's also not clear if it actually works, legally.

So that would cause a huge problem for pretty much all 3PPs.

Yeah, THAT part I understand people getting upset about, though I guess I also understand why Hasbro would want to find a way to stop direct competitors from using their own game to compete with them.

B) Open Gaming Content no longer exists in 1.0a.

You can never share anything again. The entire point of the OGL was OGC. But they delete that concept, and you automatically share everything only with WotC.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "sharing". Isn't that allowed by the non-commercial bit?

C) The only SRD allowed to exist is the 5.1 SRD. No other SRDs are allowed, nor is anything based on them allowed. So even if Paizo signed this, PF1 has to never have another book published for it - not by Paizo, not by anyone.

Do they still publish PF1 material? If so, that would suck for them, yes. But again, didn't Paizo essentially use D&D's ruleset to build D&D's biggest competition? Is that really "fair" to D&D? Is it unreasonable for D&D's owners to have a problem with that?

D) With 30 day notice, they change any of the terms of this licence, to whatever they like (!!! yes for real).

That's terrible, I admit it. That kind of stuff usually polices itself doesn't it? (IE if they ever actually do it, they'd have a riot).

E) They want 20-25% of REVENUE above $750k. Most 3PPs have a profit margin less than 25%. This means a 3PP could actively losing money on sales above $750k per year. That's about 20 companies according to WotC's estimates, but it actually seems like it might be a bit higher. And it's a great for ensuring none of those companies can ever grow. WotC do smarmily say if you repeatedly bang into the $750k bar, they may decide to give you a better licence.

REVENUE? Yeah, that would be where your only profits lie. I'm on board with this one. that would kill most of the bigger publishers, AFAICT. Which sounds like they're purposefully trying to keep their bigger publishers small. (You'd be much better off making $745K than 1M in that case, which seems strange). It seems to me to be a way of keeping publishers from becoming actual competitors.

Don't get me wrong, I always feel like there should be more carrot and less stick. I liked the original OGL because it seemed generous. (While in a lot of ways, it caused the industry to move toward more publishers propping up D&D when they could otherwise be creating competition for it - I think this was the OGL's original intent). It was only the rise of Paizo (who made better 3e product than WotC did) and then Pathfinder (that outsold 4e for awhile) that showed that the OGL could have the "loophole" of allowing a company to OUT PERFORM D&D using its own rules!

 

[Sacrosanct]

The lesson here is never let a Williams be in charge of D&D.