OGL v1.2 Survey Feedback: 'Hasn't Hit The Mark'

WotC has shared some of the (still ongoing) survey feedback following the release of the Open Game License v1.2 draft last week.

We want to thank the community for continuing to share their OGL 1.2 feedback with us. Already more than 10,000 of you have responded to the survey, which will close on February 3.

So far, survey responses have made it clear that this draft of OGL 1.2 hasn't hit the mark for our community. Please continue to share your thoughts.

Thanks to direct feedback from you and our virtual tabletop partners it's also clear the draft VTT policy missed the mark. Animations were clearly the wrong focus. We'll do better next round.

We will continue to keep an article updated with any new details posted here or elsewhere on the OGL. You can read it here

The linked FAQ (no, not THAT linked FAQ, the one where they say the original OGL cannot be revoked, I think we're supposed to ignore that one!) indicates that recent rumours about $30 subscriptions and homebrew content are false. They also say that they will be revising the 'harmful content' morality clause in the recent OGL draft, which in practice gives WotC power to shut down competitors at will.

You can still take the survey here until Feb 3rd.

 

[nevin]

The real issue I see is that morality clause has no recourse and could be easily abused. If they want to punish someone or shut them down, all they have to do is throw that at them and if they can't afford the legal fees. Which will be most content creators they fold and WOTC gets thier way. Looks to me like they can squish anyone they want with the exception of a few bigger players with just that one threat.

 

[nevin]

Repeating the same thing doesn’t make it 3 things. They tried to change the terms of a contract. They didn’t break it, because they haven’t actually taken action invalidating the contract (trying to get people to agree to an alternative is not breaking a contract). There was push back from the other parties, they are now in a period of negotiation to try and find common ground. Maybe they will find a sweet spot that ticks all the boxes maybe they won’t but I’d bet all the money in my pockets that some people will be happy with what comes out.

The drafts we have seen of the new license are free. They are proposing to replace a free license with a free license. Please don’t act like this is them putting the rent up or trying to force people out of business.

While I don't disagree with your critique of his statement, any agreement that relies on the good faith of a publicly traded company is stupid.
All it takes is one new person, one new head of legal etc and then his fear of them invalidating contracts will become a reality. And it's not if it's When

 

[TheSword]

"A. You agree that nothing prohibits Us from developing, distributing, selling, or promoting something that is
substantially similar to a Licensed Work.
B. You own the new and original content You create. You agree to give Us a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable,
worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose.
C. For clarity, nothing contained in this Section impacts Your agreement that Our Licensed Content, Unlicensed Content,
and anything else You are not otherwise expressly authorized to use, under the terms of this agreement or any other
agreement, remains Our sole property."

If I signed 1.1 they literally had the right to take Paranormal Power in it's entirety, republish it as "The OneD&D Psionics Handbook" without paying me a red cent for my words and I would have had no legal recourse to challenge it based on the OGL 1.1 I agreed to.

In what world is that trustworthy or good? Like the fist clause, A, gave them coverage for doing something "Substantially Similar" and it being challenged in court... But clause B just gives them the outright right to use your work without paying for it.

That's not even getting into the fact that the OGL 1.0a is meant to be a perpetual evergreen document ACCORDING TO THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE IT, that WotC is now trying to weasel out of. Showing that they'll break a contract that was meant to be unbreakable if they like.

Let's say they release OGL 1.5a. And we sign it. And 3 months later go "Nah, now we're going to make 1.6a." and 6 months later "Here comes OGL 2.21, which means you have to work for us directly as an unpaid intern and all your creative works belong to us!"

Like... They're untrustworthy. There's no longer an understanding of good faith in their contracts if they're looking to break the contract they made to be unbreakable.

Because that clause is their best protection when in 15 years WotC releases a paranormal 7e book which has some passing similarities to your Paranormal Power despite the writer never having seen your book. Though you decide to sue and just defending themselves costs them $10k irrespective of the size of your product or whether you are right. It’s a common and water tight protection against an otherwise substantial risk when you open up your work to thousands of creators or buy simple coincidence my create a similar product.

They have had this right in place in the DM Guild license for years now. Can you point me to a single instance where WotC has taken a creators work and published it themselves without paying for it and attributation?

I judge people on what they do, not on what they might do.

 

[Scribe]

What a crock. Lol

 

[eyeheartawk]

I judge people on what they do, not on what they might do.

Then how do you judge blowing up a license that they themselves claimed to be forever (until as recently as 2021) that people have built businesses and livelihoods around for 23 years under the good faith assumption that they would keep their word?

You judge this to be a morally upstanding and smart decision?

 

[mamba]

Repeating the same thing doesn’t make it 3 things.

I replied to three assertions of yours…

They tried to change the terms of a contract. They didn’t break it, because they haven’t actually taken action invalidating the contract

they are certainly talking about doing so, granted they do not outright admit that this is what they are doing

The drafts we have seen of the new license are free.

1.1 wasn’t, and it wasn’t a draft either, no matter how often WotC lies about that

1.2 is, because of the pushback they received from the community, so nothing to thank WotC for

They are proposing to replace a free license with a free license. Please don’t act like this is them putting the rent up or trying to force people out of business.

They are taking rights away in a new license and trying to revoke the old one, which they promised was irrevocable (and probably is), because otherwise no one would sign on to the new license.

Please don’t act like WotC is a poor and misunderstood party here, they are a bad actor that lies and breaks promises because they think they can get away with it

 

[Art Waring]

Contrast that with players playing some other game - if you aren't interested in what Wizards is publishing and you find yourself in a group playing Vampire, then you are completely out of their ecosystem. New people you bring into the game are learning Storyteller/Storypath mechanics and buying White Wolf or Onyx Path products instead of Wizards. Switching back to D&D might not happen at all even if Wizards starts publishing something you might be interested in because now you're invested in different mechanics and have different ideas for the games you want to run.

That's exactly what the 90's was like in my personal experience. D&D was for hardcore players and they were generally a closed style group (they didn't typically welcome new players in my area, you had to already know the vast amount of 2e rules and their preferred playstyle to become a regular, leading to the groups slowly dying off).

Meanwhile, games with more open styles, like Shadowrun or WoD types, where the community was willing to teach the rules to new players, had more games running at stores and more growth among the community.

A lot of that changed with the advent of the OGL 1.0a.

 

[Steampunkette]

Because that clause is their best protection when in 15 years WotC releases a paranormal 7e book which has some passing similarities to Paranormal Power despite the writer never having seen your book. Though you decide to sue and just defending themselves costs them $10k irrespective of the size of your product or whether you are right. It’s a common and water tight protection against an otherwise substantial risk when you open up your work to thousands of creators or buy simple coincidence my create a similar product.

They have had this right in place in the DM Guild license for years now. Can you point me to a single instance where WotC has taken a creators work and published it themselves without paying for it and attributation?

I judge people on what they do, not on what they might do.

Again. Clause A gives them that protection.

Clause B gives them the right to -directly- use any work I produce in it's entirety. Straight up plagiarize the entire thing, or distributing it as a whole, through any channel they like without royalties. I don't mean "Something close" I mean the book, with my name on the cover, sold under DM's Guild, with me not seeing a penny.

That isn't protection against coming up with something close. That's outright thievery.

And it also doesn't address the fact that they're trying to revoke an agreement that the people who signed the agreement, including the lawyer who wrote the thing, said and continue to say after 20 years is irrevocable.

How can you trust someone who for 20 years has said "This is the law of the land and it will never and can never change" saying "Nah. We don't wanna honor that law, anymore."?

They remain untrustworthy, and at least arguably evil.

 

[FoolishFrost]

The funny thing about this whole debate is that the only company WotC has actually taken to court to try and shut is NuTSR who we actively revile on these boards for being disgraceful.

They haven’t tried to shut down a single operator or competitor that I can see… despite many competitors cloning their works (albeit under license that was given for free to the community).

They’re still offering a free license.

They were tried and executed by the twitter-storm/you-tube crowd in under a week without releasing a single official statement.

It’s very hard for me to see WotC as evil, or untrustworthy in these circumstances.

This has been discussed to death. All the evidence was offered. It was not a Twitter-Storm, or moral outrage.

This is people, watching the HIGH likelihood that their own livelihoods were about to be killed. Your food does not flow from the goodwill of a company shown to have acted in bad faith already, such as with Wess and Hickmann.

We have them hammering contracts down throats with NDAs to prevent spread so they can get them in place before outcry can make any form of difference.

We have heard them then gaslight their actions after the fact with their apology.

I personally have worked in the computer game industry, and seen very similar shifts in direction by companies as well. These are the same movements that gave us lootboxes, live service games (canceled less than a year later) and the general battlecry of "Give us ALL the money."

Simply put, we have past behavior to guide us in the actions most likely to be taken by Wizards.

If that's not enough for you, that's fine. I'm not interested in converting you. I'm just making sure those reading this have a balancing statement to your own.

 

[dave2008]

How so? You're advocating for better language on the new OGL, who else has the power to draft it? In any version of the OGL that comes out it would be WotC who authors the language and would be expected to abide by the agreement in good faith.

I don't have to rely on or use any of it. However, WotC is not the only name in the game. We also of CC (which WotC is releasing content for) and ORC. So I don't have to rely on WotC. I could use there document if it suites me, but I don't have to. However, I think it is best for everyone if the WotC OGL, whatever version it ends up being, is the best document it can possibly be.