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'.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

its not my first chp\oice but if it puts all of this behind us keeps level up and PF going and dosn't derail playtest...i can live with it

(FYI that one is ANOTHER WotC choice i disagreed with but at the time i found out about it no one was keen on helping me rail against it)

I only found out two days ago to be fair to me lol.

They also need some kind of ability to force them to reconsider (publicly and transparently) when they get it wrong, instead of explicitly banning that.

Especially as they'll probably let a bunch of racist stuff fly and come down hard on pro-trans and anti-capitalist stuff lol.

 

[WisdomOfWombats]

Honestly, looking at the most recent ORC announcement, WotC is sitting in an empty building. From what I can tell, every major publisher except one and every middling publisher has jumped ship.Basically, WotC can put anything they want into the OGL 1.2, because apparently nobody will be using it. WotC seems to imply that magic missile or owlbear are something they have a copyright on. Looking at ORC, I would say WotC will have to prove that in court. At this point, fans getting agitated about OGL 1.2 is absolutely moot. This will be a license nobody is going to use. Everything publishers working on D&D-adjacent stuff require will most likely be released under ORC via Pathfinder 2. The only ones who will have to use OGL 1.2 are the publishers who want to cater to the upcoming OneD&D edition. At this point, WotC can try to legally battle in court, further losing sympathiy with the roleplaying community,. Or abandon the whole OGL 1.2 project in a last ditch effort to salvage the brand.

D&D was at it's peek three weeks ago. WotC themselves (not any competitor) managed to bring the house down. Yes, D&D will remain profitable. But will it ever again be as popular as in 2022? I highly doubt that. With the overwhelming support ORC is receiving by publishers, all WotC can try to do is salvage what little is left of the D&D brand reputation. OGl 1.2 is already moot before the survey is out. Best bet would be to publicly sincerly apologize and abandon the whole OGL 1.2 venture.

 

[mamba]

This is still not an OGL.

There's no share-alike, there's no OGC.

You could always hide your content behind PI, as to if you want to share content, there is

"You can make your Content available under any terms you choose but you may not change the terms under which we make Our Licensed Content available."

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The only way to live with that is if you don't care whether the license is open.

i had things i wanted, thing i dont care about, and things i dont want...but this appears to be in the middle.

I mean it appears open to me.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

how can i live with it? by compromise to get past this...

except you're not compromising. you're falling for a trap.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah, I'm with you there.

Speculation does move markets, but I don't see it driving this one. There just aren't any solid indicators of that happening. There are other much more plausible reasons for that.

I would agree, I'm firmly in the 'market is a scam' camp anyway, and think watching it on anything less than a month or 3 (quarterly) scale is likely to drive one insane, but if it brings enough eyes to this, I'm ok with people saying "look into it".

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Especially as they'll probably let a bunch of racist stuff fly and come down hard on pro-trans and anti-capitalist stuff lol.

this seems far fetched

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You could always hide your content behind PI, as to if you want to share content, there is

"You can make your Content available under any terms you choose but you may not change the terms under which we make Our Licensed Content available."

I know, but it's like, why miss that out? And why call it an OGL if it's not an OGL, because this isn't an OGL. An OGL would need a share-alike component. It does mean that potentially there will be products with, hilariously, the OGL 1.2 and the ORC applying to them though.

 

[Matt Thomason]

3) No share and share alike. That's not nice. If Level UP switches over to this license. Then no-one can make stuff for Level Up except Level Up.

That's technically true with the OGL too, if someone decides not to contribute anything as Open Game Content. The main difference here is that you will need to specify what license you are contributing your content under, the 1.2 license has no Section15-alike mechanism to add your contributions into the existing license page, but does specify you are free to license your own content however you wish. I do feel it's stupid and messy, though, not to give us the option to simply add our own content to a S15-alike clause on the 1.2 license page.

4) Computer programs seem a grey area. Under 1.0a they were allowed, you just had to figure out how you were going to designate what was OGC. They specifically talk about VTT. But there are a lot of things that are not static files and are not VTT.

This is worrying, yes. Now, there's an argument that something like a character creator is just a partly-written VTT, its the bit of the tabletop directly in front of each player rather than the shared map areas, and similar arguments for other bits of software. I feel they're likely not going to have any problems with people making those. They do need to clarify it, though, and there needs to be wording to ensure they cannot change their minds later if something comes out they feels threatens their own products but didn't think of banning at the time.

On that last issue alone, I'm adamant that we must see a court judgement on the continued use of 1.0a.

 

[Aspirinsmurf]

except you're not compromising. you're falling for a trap.

Specifically this trap, or "compliance technique" as it's called.

Door-in-the-face technique - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org