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'.

 

[Reynard]

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

As someone in another thread just pointed out: the de-authorization is not in the license itself. Does declaring such a thing make it valid?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I suspect de-authorizing is headed for a court near you in the near future.

Does it even matter?

 

[Matt Thomason]

Do I see that correctly, all the sections regarding monsters and spells are out of the CC'd part of the SRD? That will make CC-only gaming (or 'cloning) quite hard to do.

Depends on what your project is.

If you're writing your own game in a setting that isn't D&D-ish, that's not a problem, you wouldn't want those things anyway, and can use the CC version. Works perfectly for something such as Fria Ligan's LotR RPG or the 5e-compatible "Doctors and Daleks" by C7.

 

[whimsychris123]

The effects of this license on 3rd party publishers seems complicated, definitely to be examined by lawyers. Perhaps how this OGL would actually play out in the community is unknown. I would approach this with some trepidation if I were a publisher.

 

[Blue]

Looking at the text of the new license, there is no reason to keep using 1.0 unless you want to put hate speech in your product. That's the only real change there.

No more access to the 3ed and 3.5 OGL is a big one for a lot of published games.

No legal recourse if they deem you inappropriate.

 

[Enrahim2]

What is obscene, offensive, harrassing, etc., is very much in the eyes of the beholder, and very much culturally dependent. It's not an absolute. So who gets to decide what's allowed and not?

Indeed the beholder itself can be considered obscene! Maybe that is why it is not part of the SRD?

 

[dave2008]

...so then who gets to decide?

What is obscene, offensive, harrassing, etc., is very much in the eyes of the beholder, and very much culturally dependent. It's not an absolute. So who gets to decide what's allowed and not?

There are organizations for this type of thing (think CC for defining hate speech). I don't have the link, but it was provided in one of these threads over the past few weeks.

This kind of clause doesn't belong in an open license.

It's fine in a license for one company to say what of their stuff other people can use. The big problem here is WotC claiming that this is somehow an open license.

I agree it doesn't belong in an open license. My other request is that they rename this a GSL or something.

 

[Reynard]

Do I see that correctly, all the sections regarding monsters and spells are out of the CC'd part of the SRD? That will make CC-only gaming (or 'cloning) quite hard to do.

No, the rules for those things are CC, just not specific examples.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah how scandalous for a for profit company uses the word under monetized. What monsters.

I mean... yes. Absolutely.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Who would you replace them with? There is no objective standard, as the US Supreme Court has made explicit.