WotC Unveils Draft of New Open Gaming License

As promised earlier this week, WotC has posted the draft OGL v.1.2 license for the community to see.

A survey will be going live tomorrow for feedback.

Starting the OGL ‘Playtest’

In this article, you can review a draft of OGL 1.2, submit feedback via survey, and learn about a Creative Commons license that puts D&D's core mech...

www.dndbeyond.com

The current iteration contains clauses which prohibit offensive content, applies only to TTRPG books and PDFs, no right of ownership going to WotC, and an optional creator content badge for your products.

One important element, the ability for WotC to change the license at-will has also been addressed, allowing the only two specific changes they can make -- how you cite WotC in your work, and contact details.

This license will be irrevocable.

The OGL v1.0a is still being 'de-authorized'.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is...better than I feared, but nowhere near good enough. Not yet.

That they're willing to put the mechanics in a Creative Commons license so they're genuinely out of WotC's hands forever is a gesture I didn't expect. That doesn't mean I trust them an inch, but...it's something concrete, for once.

A lot of the statements here still read like disingenuous corp-speak designed to deflect rather than address. I will definitely want to hear analysis from actual lawyers on the subject.

But....well, before I was mad and pretty well convinced it would take months of being mad in order to get something like this. My surprise is enough to make me think, and hope that that "it's making me think" reaction is not a calculated ploy. I definitely oppose the wishy-washy, content-gating aspect, because that could be abused to hell and back by any current or future license-holders in really, really, REALLY awful ways. Further, I'm not happy about the implicit lack of license iteration/transfer. If person A creates open content, and then person B creates open content, could person C create open content based off of the open content portions of those two? Could A employ open content from B? etc.

I am genuinely surprised to say, "this is a start." It is ONLY a start, and still has major problems. But I expected a slap in the face, and I got what seems like a genuine effort. Time to see what comes next.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh yes. To clarify, everyone wanting to make a 5e clone does not have to avoid having a race named "Elf" a class named "Wizard", a monster named "Zombie", or a spell named "Invisibility". They just have to be distinct from WotC's versions.

I have been re-reading Beyond the Wall, which already makes a lot of their versions of things different enough (different names, different fluff, everyone with slightly different mechanics), and I think this is something that most folks publishing 5E-alikes will likely be eager to do anyway.

 

[Dausuul]

Oh yes. To clarify, everyone wanting to make a 5e clone does not have to avoid having a race named "Elf" a class named "Wizard", a monster named "Zombie", or a spell named "Invisibility". They just have to be distinct from WotC's versions.

Sure. But what if you have all four of those things? What if you have a hundred such things? What if they make up most or all of the class, race, monster, and spell names in your game?

There is a point where the accumulation of non-copyrightable parts crosses the line into a copyrightable whole. Otherwise you could never copyright anything -- you can't copyright a single word, a novel is just a series of single words, ergo a novel cannot be copyrighted.

 

[Alzrius]

Quick thing.

A lot of what people might think of as "nefarious," are actually standard provisions in most contracts.

But, I'm given to understand, are not standard provisions for open licenses.

 

[dave2008]

^This is not hard.^

Any "Morality Clause" is a poisoned pill.

Not for me personally. I will mention in the survey that this is the clause that needs work. Just remove themselves from determine what is hateful and I am basically good with it.

 

[Mistwell]

Owlbears were open content previously, so they're trying to claw back IP. Any bloating about "protecting the brand from hateful content" is just a smokescreen.

smokescreen FOR WHAT? It's an irrevocable license which cannot be changed or otherwise amended in the future, which has no royalties. How does that "claw back" their IP from what it is right now?

 

[rknop]

This doesn’t seem to be an open licence of the same sort as the OGL and open software licences. From what I can tell it isn’t written as a template for users of WotC open content to use to also license their own content and doesn’t have a viral effect on the openness of other parties’ content.

It's not an open license at all.

It's a license for using D&D content in other products.

It's extremely disingenuous for them to call it the "O"GL, because it's not that at all. Either (a) they don't understand the OGL, and thought it was just a license for using D&D all along and nothing else, or, more likely, (b) they're cynically calling this the "O"GL to make it seem legitimate for them to try to de-authorize the actual OGL.

 

[Pedantic]

Quick thing.

A lot of what people might think of as "nefarious," are actually standard provisions in most contracts.

It's hard to deal with all the stuff going around- I don't know how many times, and how many people, had to say (back when royalties was a thing) that licensing agreements are always about revenue, not profit, and that wasn't some evil trick.

Same here. This is standard boilerplate language. Companies (and the attorneys that draft contractual language for companies) hate expensive litigation against them. This is nothing more than a standard waiver of class action ... the whole "class, collective, or other joint action," is simply legal surplusage to try and get all of the various type of "class actions" (like collective actions as they are called under the FLSA etc.).

It's not a "big deal." It's boilerplate.

I hear this a lot, but this always just sounds like "the default state of the world is bad, so there's no reason to be upset about any individual instance in which it is bad."

I realize this is a tiny battleground in a massive ocean of problems, but just because this is standard makes it no less upsetting. I'd prefer a comprehensive set of legal reforms, but forcing one company to adopt a license that is effectively "sub-par" by current legal norms is something.

 

[dave2008]

That is the question, to my mind: can someone like ENP keep making new Level Up products, for example, or not?

yes or no?

They could just move it to the OGL 1.2 and/or CC. Then there is no issue. I don't see why LevelUp would need to continue with the OGL 1.0a.

 

[Matt Thomason]

See section 5.

As long as WotC understand 3PPs may still used their de-authorized 1.0a between one another for their own contributions, that's fine. My question is whether they do