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'.

 

[Xohar17]

The OSR (and clones) were all made with the OGL and SRD but being a bit creative with it to make it "AD&D-esque". There was never an SRD for TSR era D&D. You can still do what with the new license. As far as I can tell, the only difference is you can't put hate speech in it going forward.

Its much more vague than hate content isnt it?

Just reading the SRD right now. So we have core mechanics (leveling up, hd, proeficiency, etc) but no classes, the rules about monster stats, but no monster, and the conditions.

Si whats in the cc then? If thats all we got in the srd.

 

[S'mon]

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

They definitely seem determined to die on that hill.

 

[RealAlHazred]

It may be my irrevocable perpetual cynicism, but the people in charge at Wizards today will not be the ones in charge tomorrow, and opinions change with every regime. Having the unilateral, uncontestable ability to determine what is "harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing" conduct is a big deal. I'm not saying it's a bad license, but this is a pretty heavy decision. For instance, if you include the idea of, say, "abortion" in your product in a non-criminal way, could they decide that was "illegal content" because they sell a lot of product in a state that has super-strict abortion standards? Maybe, maybe not. But it's food for thought and consideration. I suspect someone will come up with another license (ORC, maybe) that won't have that kind of language, and that would potentially make it a more attractive license to publish under.

 

[Matt Thomason]

That's definitely going to be a continued sticking point. "I don't want WotC to unilaterally be able to stop a supplement from being published" is a perfectly tenable position; likewise, saying WotC should be able to stop "White Robes: the Grand Wizard's Handbook" from being published is also a completely valid position to hold.

It comes down to a question of trust; right now, a lot of us might not be willing or able to consider WotC as being able to be a good steward of the game. Maybe that will change over the next few months depending on how this process goes, we'll have to find out.

Yeah, I mean, I trusted WotC circa 2000 not to ever try and stop the OGL 1.0a. WotC today is not that WotC.

I trust WotC circa today not to abuse a morality clause for their own benefit. But who runs WotC tomorrow?

 

[LordEntrails]

IANAL, but after a careful read through here are my thoughts:

First, "giving the core mechanics" is the height of arrogance. Game mechanics already are well understood not to be able to be protected as intellectual property, and therefore WotC is giving us nothing we don't already have.

OGL 1.2
1(b) "static files" is a dubious classification. Every digital file is static, until it is changed. Such changes can be done systematically to epubs and pdfs just as well as any file type. What are data types that this does not apply to? And what is the attempt to protect? What are they trying to protect or prevent? Database derived character management applications?

6(f) Anything illegal is already covered under 6(e), so therefore any illegal hate speech etc is already covered and leads this to indicate that the purpose of this section is not to actually prevent illegal hate speech (etc), but for some other unstated reason. No definition of the terms are defined and with no means for third party arbitration or legal intervention, effectively means that WotC can declare anything void under this section and there is no recourse to the creator (i.e. this section could easily be used to void competitive content).

9(d) Effectively means that the first time this license is challenged in court, and any part of it is deemed void, WotC can pull the entire license from everyone. Effectively making all previous content released under the OGL 1.2 unlicensed and illegal. Therefore this is not an irrevocable license. Not acceptable.

9(e) How can one even support removing the ability to dispute a legal contract via a class action or joint action? This does not, to me, indicate good will and faith that they are doing "the right thing". But rather that they expect to be challenged, and want to minimize the feasibility of their future actions in regards to this license by making it so most potential complainants could not afford to pursue action.

9(g) Why? Again this indicates bad faith and the expectation of legal action against this license. Why bother to release it if you expect action against it?

VTT Policy
No working definition of what a VTT is. And limiting such to "replicating sitting around the table" is very unimaginative, and debatable. I would argue that current VTT's in many ways go beyond the experience of sitting around the table and therefore already might not be covered by this policy. And their example of animating a magic missile spell is already troublesome and well within current VTT technologies.

Static content... see comment on 1(b) above.

In short, this VTT policy adds nothing to the community. It only appears to be an attempt to limit VTT development in some uncertain way without a clear intent.

I'll admit, this is better than there first attempt, but it has a long way to go.

 

[OB1]

So it seems that the two primary goals of this was for WotC to be able to stop hateful content being published under their license, and to prevent VTTs from directly competing against Wizards VTT using Wizards owned content. A few thoughts and questions.

1. For the lawyers - If Company A is using the 1.0a OGL and includes content from Company B, but NO content from WotC SRDs, would WotC have any grounds to stop that? Seems like they wouldn't. What would WotC sue over?
2. If WotC abuses it's power to stop hateful content from being published, I expect they will be called out just as hard as they have for the last few weeks. Someone has to be the arbiter of this, and given all WotC has done to help promote inclusiveness over the past 20 years, I'll trust them to wield this power carefully. Just because WotC CAN use it to shut down a product they don't like, doesn't mean they will.
3. I agree with those saying that this isn't a true OGL, and I think that's fine. Between CC, ORC and this OGL, companies will be able to publish a mix of content based on the wants of their customers.
4. Of all this, the VTT issue I think is the most important to WotC. Perhaps they already have wind of a software company building their own VTT using the 5e SRD and are working to cut them off at the pass. And this may be why the new OGL is coming out a year before 6e.

 

[el-remmen]

This is not good enough. In fact, it is worse in how it is trying to be even sneakier in its framing.

 

[S'mon]

No no no no NO!

Look, WotC, I get that you want to de-authorize the OGL v1.0a really, really badly, but it's a complete and utter non-starter! Framing it as "but we NEED to make this the only version of the OGL available, so we can terminate products that have hateful content" doesn't make that any better; it just makes it sound better. And, as noted many times before, if you're reserving the ability to unilaterally determine what is and is not hateful, as well as the ability to cancel any such product (Section 6(f)), then the license is by definition not open!

The OGL worked just fine for over twenty years without you curating content. Stop using this solution in search of a problem as a fig leaf for exerting oversight over everyone who wants open gaming.

"1. We've established that you can't trust us.
2. You need to trust us now."

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I have an issue with „obscene“. This can be used to ban the depiction of same gender couples or same gender kisses from OGL products. „Obscenity laws“ have been/are one of the main avenues to battle LGBTQIA+ people in the past and present. Who guarantees that a future Hasbro/WotC management won‘t use that to again marginalize depictions of LGBTQIA+ persons? I don‘t trust WotC on this, at all.

I had the same thought, for years obscenity laws in Canada were abused to unfairly target gay content.

Speaking of the gay community when I was a kid Queer was actually seen as a homophobic slur, then Queer as Folk and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy happened and it was seen as a celebration instead. What does and doesn't count as hateful often changes, spending a fortune on publishing based on todays standards when tomorrow they might change and lead me to be deathorized only for a few years later it changes again is extremely unfair.

And to make it worse it's all up to WotCs whims and they don't have justify under these rules.

If they were serious about protecting against hate they'd set it up so if they wanted to deauthorize something they'd have to take to a pre-determined, respected, independent 3rd party binding arbitration so they couldn't abuse it.

And drop words like obscene, harmful (too vague) and illegal (in fiction, I shouldn't have to worry about being deauthorized because an NPC stole something from players in an adventure I write).

While I'm the CC stuff is an impressive sounding scam, it's stuff they can't protect anyways, and isn't worth trying over.

This OGL 1.2 is as big a joke as OGL 1.1 and OGL 2.0.

This is really about protecting their exclusive right to sell Owlbear plushies.

Their attempt at deauthorizing OGL 1.0a will fail, it'll get tied up in courts until they lose and it's all meaningless by that point.

This is getting increasingly dumb.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

"We want our work to be shared by as many people as possible but we don't want horrific bigots to profit off of our work" is actually a pretty awesome stance, and exactly what I would try to do had I had my hands on any halfway decent property.

It's also super easy to not be a horrific bigot, like you pretty much have to try and make it core to your identity (see: NuTSR), if you actually want to be even a halfway decent human being this isn't something you need to really worry about.

Halfway decent human beings are unfortunately never as large a percentage of the world's population as one ever hopes they are.