WotC To Give Core D&D Mechanics To Community Via Creative Commons

Wizards of the Coast, in a move which surprised everbody, has announced that it will give away the core D&D mechanics to the community via a Creative Commons license.

This won't include 'quintessentially D&D" stuff like owlbears and magic missile, but it wil include the 'core D&D mechanics'.

So what does it include? It's important to note that it's only a fraction of what's currently available as Open Gaming Content under the existing Open Gaming License, so while it's termed as a 'give-away' it's actually a reduction. It doesn't include classes, spells, or magic items. It does include the combat rules, ability scores, and the core mechanic.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Wait... at least in America, Civil Trials aren't by Jury in the first place, right?

 

[Voadam]

Continuing on from my previous post, how will this function in relation to 9(d) ...



So if no trial is available, who gets to decide if something in "unenforceable" per 9(d). They don't even provide a clause for how disputes are to be resolved.

This wotc post and new "OGL", like everything before, is BS.

No trial by jury means trial by judge. The judge will make the ruling.

Jury trials are only a constitutional right for criminal law stuff.

 

[Charlaquin]

I agree, but I also think releasing the core mechanics under a CC-BY license is also a signal that WotC’s not interested in going after people like TSR did.

Indeed, this whole debacle seems at this point to be intended to prevent people from reproducing their races, classes, spells, monsters, or magic items without having to go after anyone to stop them. That, and to give them the power to take the license away from anyone who they think is making them look bad by association.

 

[BlueFin]

This is complete BS and, I imagine, quite "unenforceable" ...

What isn't permitted are features that don't replicate your dining room table storytelling. If you replace your imagination with an animation of the Magic Missile streaking across the board to strike your target, or your VTT integrates our content into an NFT, that's not the tabletop experience. That's more like a video game.

Here's wotc telling us how we can and can't use something that is completely outside their control.

I would love for an actual lawyer to chime in here, but I can't see how they can tell a VTT creator "you can't create a visual effect that could be used to represent something we claim ownership to". And so, once we find out that it is "unenforceable", per 9(d) wotc can "declare the entire license void", which would leave everyone in a far worse position than they are in now.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I genuinely don’t think anything in the portions of the SRD being released under Creative Commons is copyrightable material anyway. In that light, this looks like a really sneaky PR stunt.

But it is a very safe haven to not for any legal battle to actualls prove that this not copywritable.

And despite some claims I read before, the rules from page 56 and above do include an xp shard and a spell progression chart and the idea of feats and skills and ability scores. So it is not nothing to base your game on.

 

[BlueFin]

No trial by jury means trial by judge. The judge will make the ruling.

Jury trials are only a constitutional right for criminal law stuff.

Cool, thanks for the clarification. (I'm not from the US )

 

[Hex08]

Regardless of whether this announcement is good or bad (your opinion may vary) the deauthorization of OGL 1.0 is still B.S. and WotC has already shown they don't operate in good faith. At this point, even if they walked everything back it would be too late for me.

Also, the provision on no hateful content, while well intentioned, seems way to broad. If I made a game that was based on an alternate history of the US set during the pre-Civil War era and used the new OGL would I have to purge all references to slavery and racism? Based on the wording of the new OGL it certainly seems so.

 

[Voadam]

This means no safe harbor for any D&D type compatible stuff outside of OGL 1.2.

No safe harbor under the proposed CC for 5e, Pathfinder, OSR type adventures or settings with recognizable D&D classes, races, or monsters.

If you wanted to make a new 5e rules sci-fi or post apocalyptic game from scratch with no D&Disms you would be within the safe harbor. No Golarion, No Midgard, No Freeport, No modules for D&D unless it was Tekumel levels of original weirdness.

 

[The Sigil]

This all seems incredibly reasonable and fair.

I completely disagree that it is "incredibly" reasonable and fair. I will grant that it is more reasonable than the leaked OGL 1.1 draft but the word "incredibly" is not a word I would use to describe it.

Even if we were to assume that I was not going to create something racist or offensive (we'll get to that in a moment), if I were to assent to the terms of OGL 1.2 as presently constituted, I would have far less freedom to create things than I would have under the current OGL 1.0a and the only thing I would have received in return is the ability to put a special creator logo on my product. Is it reasonable and fair for me to give up that creative freedom in exchange for a logo?

I actually used the d20 STL back in the day, which put additional restrictions on what I could do with the OGL 1.0a in exchange for the use of the logo, and I felt at the time the restrictions were in fact worth the use of the logo so I am familiar with the pros and cons of making a decision like this. I do not feel the restrictions imposed by the proposed OGL 1.2 are a fair exchange for use of that today, much less "incredibly fair."

I don't want people making racist and offensive games.

Whether or not you or I want people making racist and offensive games is not the right question. The problem is, "who gets to decide what is racist and/or offensive?" What happens when you personally don't agree with the person who makes that call about whether something is offensive? By its nature, "what is offensive" is a SUBJECTIVE call, and it can change in a single person over time. I will suggest you watch Tom Scott's excellent video, "There is no algorithim for truth" which spells out a lot of the problems on getting someone to admit their deeply held beliefs may in fact be wrong when there is incontrovertible OBJECTIVE evidence, let alone subjective disagreements:

They're making the new license irrevocable.

I agree, putting that language in the OGL 1.2 is a good change.

But... what's to say they don't attempt to "deauthorize" the OGL 1.2 when they release the OGL 1.3? That they are deliberately ignoring contemporaneous evidence from their own OGL 1.0a FAQ, interviews with Ryan Dancey during and after his tenure as VP of D&D that all point to the intent of 1.0a being "irrevocable" (and "un-de-authorizable") makes me uneasy. Who's to say the next set of heads at WotC won't hire lawyers and instruct them to find a way to weasel out of OGL 1.2?

They're making the core rules creative commons, so they can never go away and WotC can't every touch them.

What they have defined as "Core Rules" is extremely limited and not exactly suitable to make a fully-functional game, as others have pointed out. They are also trying to withdraw the 3e, 3.5e, Modern, and several other SRDs.

I can't wait to see how the community and YouTubers attack this....

This isn't really productive. You seem to already have your mind made up.

Would I like WotC to just drop this whole charade and leave the OGL 1.0a alone, or that OGL 1.3 should be OGL 1.0a with the addition of "irrevocable" and "can never be deauthorized?" Of course.

But I like to feel I'm reasonable. If WotC is willing to release 3.0, 3.5, Modern, and all other SRDs prior to 5.1 released to this point (stuff they aren't currently supporting and should be willing to let go) under a license that is at least as generous as the OGL 1.0a and then they want to make some slight changes around the way the 5.1 SRD - the currently supported version - is accessed, I can be convinced those changes are reasonable... especially if they make it an "opt-in" where you agree to the changes in exchange for the right to use the Creator Logo.

I'm even willing to cede them a license that says something like, "if you publish something we feel is offensive, you agree to third-party arbitration" (provided there is a provision for the arbiter to be neutral) if they feel so strongly about combatting offensive content (for reasons outlined above, I think it's a fool's errand).

WotC hasn't gotten to the point where I think this is a "good deal" (or even a "fair one") for creators yet, but I am not going to say "leave the OGL 1.0a or bust" - I think there are minor changes they can propose to the 1.0a OGL which I would find reasonable, but to me, the changes need to be an incremental step or two from the OGL 1.0a and while the proposed 1.2 is closer than 1.1, it's still too far away.

 

[bostonmyk]

Hmm. VTT policy goes to the front page. Orcus, Tempus, Tyr.. you'd think they'd note that it doesn't exist yet. They don't do themselves too many favors either. Tabled until survey is out!