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'.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So your argument is that you can get away with essentially stealing IP of anyone who doesn't have the money, capacity or awareness to sue you?

That is nither my intent nor what I wrote. I don't know where that comes from at all.

Lets say tomorrow WotC does it, they end the OGL. by law no Fate OGL stuff works by the way people are saying now... so if I publish a Fate book I could by direct legal means be sued (contract, OGL is done) BUT the people that put fate out did it on purpose, have shown no reason to think they want to take it back, and have no reason to sue me.

YOU brought up out of print, so I used out of print. If you want to use in print we can as well same answer, if anything it's easier... You can ask "Hey you put this stuff out OGL are you still chill with us useing it?"

I can sort of see your point. But I don't think this sounds like a great business plan either.

I'm not sure we are making a business plan

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I give up, I cannot get the new OGL into a shape that is both acceptable and sufficiently airtight enough for me to expect that WotC will have a hard time violating it. That is the problem with having zero trust, you cannot do business that way.

So if I cannot have that, then I have no reason to compromise. Irrevocable 1.0a it is.

and that is a okay too.

We all have our lines.

I promise you, you are NOT alone. Others have already and will as time goes on walk away over this. Some to other systems, some out of the hobby all togather.

I hope you find a game a company and a community that works so you can at least stay in the over all TTRPG community.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Sure, but you know, the whole point of the OGL is to protect you from that possibility in the first place.

yes, and if it goes away we have nothing but understanding (and if it isn't out of print/buisness the ability to talk to that company until tehy issue a new licence)

I don't know how I could, because it doesn't exist yet.

no I don't mean the you can't use today... but like I showed New Haven games (but to be honest not much to take there) show me a product a company put out, that another company worked on, and now today with the OGL you COULD use but if the OGL goes away it would not be useable without being sued... and who would sue you?

Up until now I have been 100% with "If you take WotC stuff they will most likely sue and bury you" but they have no standing to sue on a third parties behalf.

But if you look in a book that uses some else's open game content they spell that out in the back, and then, let's say that person's work was based on somebody else's open game content they iterated from some one else but that never gets updated under ORC or OGL 1.2 (which right now, doesn't seem to even have a clear provision for open game content from anybody but WOTC anyway-another problem) now you're in a legally grey area.

yes you are... your best bet would be to contact the publisher... if you can't though, I find it hard to imagine BOTH a company so hard to find/reach that you can't get permission AND so all powerful as to not only sue you but to have the money that (like WotC) they could bury you.

Then again I have seen the same concept rehashed a few times through out 3e so I imagine you could just take 'insperation' from this thing and put your own spin on it...

In some cases you wouldn't even know that you're exposed possibly.

wait, so you would use something and not know you used it?

I don't understand how you don't understand why that's a big deal. Multiple, multiple people have explained this to you over multiple threads and you keep saying "it's not a big deal, tho", like what?

because no one has explained it to me in a way that makes me agree with them.

It's pretty simple, it's conversation 101. You out line why you think something is important and I out line why I think it's not... maybe one convinces the other maybe not.

When I was younger a TV show got into my head and I loved it... Odyssey 5. It had teh most awesome cliffhanger. I could explain to you in detail why it mattered I never got the ending to that story... but if you look at it and say "Dude, it's a show from the 90's not that big a deal" doesn't mean you are wrong... or that I am... it means we disagree.

 

[GDGD]

Just noting that the survey appears to now be open.

OGL 1.2 survey

 

[eyeheartawk]

wait, so you would use something and not know you used it?

Because it's iterative.

People have built on top of each other's OGC for 23 years. When you cited somebody elses OGC content in your book, that content itself may have been iterated previously who knows how many times down the line.

It could be an onion the genesis of which is 20+years ago.

I've seen it intepreted both ways on whether you really need to worry about the stuff you cited directly, not stuff further upstream, but even then it's intensely disruptive if only that directly cited OGC is an intrinsic part of your game and never gets updated to whatever license you decide to use.

 

[Jerik]

What does 3.5 have that 5e doesn't?

if I knew that I wouldn’t be asking Also that is not entirely correct. 3e was not BX or 1e either, yet compatible games were created out of it.

I'm not sure why you're still asking this, because it was already answered, by both me and Maxperson. Heck, look just two posts down from the post you quoted!

But I'll try to answer again, more concisely and perhaps more clearly than I did yesterday:

Even if you could reconstruct the 3E rules without infringing on the license, there is a huge load of content in the earlier SRDs that is not in the SRD 5.0/5.1—monsters, spells, magic items, etc. Let's just look at the monsters as an example. As I said before, the core 3E SRD alone contained about twice as many monsters as the SRD 5.0/5.1. You can see for yourself if you don't believe me: here are the monsters from the 3.5 SRD, and here are the monsters from the 5.1. There are lots of monsters that were in the former and not the latter. Just from the As alone, there's the achaierai, allip, aranea, three types of archon, arrowhawk, assassin vine, athach, and avoral. If you can't use the 3.5 SRD anymore, those monsters are now off limits. And then there are lots more monsters that got added later in the Psionic Rules SRD, the Epic Rules SRD, the d20 Modern SRD... there are hundreds of monsters that were in the 3.0/3.5/Modern SRDs that aren't in the 5.0/5.1. And again, that's just the monsters; there are also the spells, magic items, etc.

Sure, you don't have to use those monsters. But heck, you don't have to use the monsters from the 5.0 SRD. You don't have to use any WotC content at all; you can just make your own original game. But if you want to use any of those hundreds of monsters (and spells, etc.), which were previously fully available under the OGL 1.0(a), you can't do it without access to the earlier SRDs.

This is not just a hypothetical matter that would never come up in practice. I gave an example of a specific project I had planned that I couldn't do without access to the previous SRDs.

Please stop asking why anyone cares about the 3E SRD. This question has been answered. If you disagree with the answer, then explain why you disagree, but please stop acting like nobody has tried to answer the question.

(Of course, if WotC follows through with what it said about adding content from the earlier SRDs to the OGL 1.2 and/or CC license, this matter may become moot anyway...)

 

[Scribe]

okay show me this broken string. Show me something that was released into open content (preferable something that was also worked on by someone else after) and now if this goes through you would be sued or even C&Ded if you used it under ORC on the new blackflag.

Everything in PF1

 

[mamba]

and that is a okay too.

We all have our lines.

I promise you, you are NOT alone. Others have already and will as time goes on walk away over this. Some to other systems, some out of the hobby all togather.

I hope you find a game a company and a community that works so you can at least stay in the over all TTRPG community.

oh I am not worried about me (or WotC), just disappointed.

This whole thing has been one drag, and now that they are finally listening, it turns out it still is. You have to fight them every step of the way.

When I look at what is going on with ORC, I feel excited. When I look at this on the other hand… I guess this is the very definition of too little, too late

 

[mamba]

I’m not sure why you're still asking this, because it was already answered

maybe a timing issue, but I have stopped asking sometime yesterday

 

[reelo]

who are we fighting for?

My understanding up until now has been we were fighting for Green ROnin, Enpub, and Piazo... if they have all already walked away what is left to fight for?

I, for one, am fighting for the OSR. The OSR, and many indie game publishers absolutely rely on the ability to use (and continue to use!) the d20/3E SRD and that is linked to 1.0a and SPECIFICALLY not usable anymore under 1.2
There's a large number of small indie publishers that produce content for, or based on, legacy editions like 0D&D, Holmes Basic, B/X, E1, BECMI, 2E, RC, and 3E.
What WizBro is doing amounts to nothing less than cultural vandalism!