WotC Backs Down: Original OGL To Be Left Untouched; Whole 5E Rules Released as Creative Commons

Hundreds of game publishers sigh in relief as, after extensive pressure exerted by the entire open gaming community, WotC has agreed to leave the original Open Gaming License untouched and put the whole of the 5E rules into Creative Commons.

So, what's happened?

• The Open Gaming Licence v1.0a which most of the D&D third party industry relies on, will be left untouched for now.
• The whole of the D&D 5E SRD (ie the rules of the game less the fluff text) has been released under a Creative Commons license.

OGL 1.0a & Creative Commons

Over the past few weeks you, the community, have made your voices heard. And we’ve listened. OGL 1.0a will remain untouched AND the entire SRD 5.1...

www.dndbeyond.com

WotC has a history of 'disappearing' inconvenient FAQs and stuff, such as those where they themselves state that the OGL is irrevocable, so I'll copy this here for posterity.

When you give us playtest feedback, we take it seriously.

Already more than 15,000 of you have filled out the survey. Here's what you said:

• 88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2.
• 90% would have to change some aspect of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.
• 89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
• 86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy.
• 62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons.

These live survey results are clear. You want OGL 1.0a. You want irrevocability. You like Creative Commons.
The feedback is in such high volume and its direction is so plain that we're acting now.

1. We are leaving OGL 1.0a in place, as is. Untouched.
2. We are also making the entire SRD 5.1 available under a Creative Commons license.
3. You choose which you prefer to use.

This Creative Commons license makes the content freely available for any use. We don't control that license and cannot alter or revoke it. It's open and irrevocable in a way that doesn't require you to take our word for it. And its openness means there's no need for a VTT policy. Placing the SRD under a Creative Commons license is a one-way door. There's no going back.

Our goal here is to deliver on what you wanted.

So, what about the goals that drove us when we started this process?

We wanted to protect the D&D play experience into the future. We still want to do that with your help. We're grateful that this community is passionate and active because we'll need your help protecting the game's inclusive and welcoming nature.

We wanted to limit the OGL to TTRPGs. With this new approach, we are setting that aside and counting on your choices to define the future of play.
Here's a PDF of SRD 5.1 with the Creative Commons license. By simply publishing it, we place it under an irrevocable Creative Commons license. We'll get it hosted in a more convenient place next week. It was important that we take this step now, so there's no question.

• SRD 5.1-CC

We'll be closing the OGL 1.2 survey now.

We'll keep talking with you about how we can better support our players and creators. Thanks as always for continuing to share your thoughts.

Kyle Brink
Executive Producer, Dungeons & Dragons

What does this mean?

The original OGL sounds safe for now, but WotC has not admitted that they cannot revoke it. That's less of an issue now the 5E System Reference Document is now released to Creative Commons (although those using the 3E SRD or any third party SRDs still have issues as WotC still hasn't revoked the incorrect claim that they can revoke access to those at-will).

At this point, if WotC wants anybody to use whatever their new OGL v1.x turns out to be, there needs to be one heck of a carrot. What that might be remains to be seen.

Pathfinder publlsher Paizo has also commented on the latest developments.

We welcome today’s news from Wizards of the Coast regarding their intention not to de-authorize OGL 1.0a. We still believe there is a powerful need for an irrevocable, perpetual independent system-neutral open license that will serve the tabletop community via nonprofit stewardship. Work on the ORC license will continue, with an expected first draft to release for comment to participating publishers in February.

Over 1,500 Publishers Support Paizo's Upcoming Open RPG Creator's License

Paizo has revealed some of the 1,500+ tabletop RPG publishers who have expressed an interest in their new Open RPG Creator's License (ORC), describing the group as the 'ORC Alliance'. The license itself is still being worked on, so these 1,500 publishers have not actually seen it or signed...

www.enworld.org

 

[Reynard]

I wish...

Take 4e but bring the HP down to 2e levels (keep them front loaded though) and some 5e inventions like adv/disad and you have a 6e I would sing for

I just meant that they were going to make a move to change the game enough that it couldn't be retro-cloned off the 5.1 SRD, not that it would look anything like 4E.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

So, that is the FIRST step to rebuilding trust, not the last.

 

[Staffan]

We warned you about racist Owlbear porn, but you wouldn't listen!

Dear Jeremy,

I never thought it would happen to me, but as I was wandering through Cormanthor on my way to Shadowdale I heard a strange hooting noise. I decided to investigate, and...

 

[Dausuul]

You're going to hear people say that we won, and WOTC lost because making our voices heard forced them to change their plans.

Those people will only be half right. We won—and so did they.

The way I see it, we won. And so did the people at Wizards of the Coast who care about the community. And so did Wizards of the Coast as a whole (since I think the OGL makes them stronger in the long term).

Chris Cao, however, lost.

 

[Umbran]

That closes the gap for things that only rely on the SRD. But take something like Night of Frozen Shadows (part 2 of the Jade Regent AP), which in addition to the SRD uses Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary, Necromancer Games' Tome of Horrors III, as well as three monsters (separately credited) from Tome of Horrors, Revised.

Goodness gracious, how many edge cases do we feel WotC needs to worry about before we are just okay with it all?

 

[OB1]

5e bounded accuracy proves itself again. An army of 10,000 went into a dungeon, fought a dragon, and won

 

[see]

Wow. That's....total victory. And for those who say they needed to make an OGL 1.0b to make it irrevocable, the Creative Commons release does that better anyway.

Yep.

I mean, they could still theoretically try to deauth the 1.0a in the future to kill off the "community" of Open Game Content built up over the last 20-odd years, and I still would like a 1.0b that shuts that down entirely. But what would be the business point in such gratuitous nastiness for them, with the 5e SRD now under CC BY? It would be the same bad PR they just had, with much less upside.

I mean, heck, they do politiely ask that people not use D&D trademarks to indicate compatibility in the new document, but CC BY doesn't even let them enforce that. From the WotC-Hasbro business perspective, they just lost ground compared to where they were a month ago on "protecting" the D&D brand, and irrevocably so.

This is indeed victory, and I can now go and see the D&D movie when it comes out.

 

[Staffan]

Well, the names for most of it are for creatures from myth and legend, so there's nothing stopping anyone from taking the ones that aren't in the 5.1 SRD and writing them up for under 5E and shoving them into CC as well. The remaining number of creatures not covered are pretty small, and are things like the trapper and lurker above, which while they have their fans, are hardly integral to D&D-like games nowadays.

I don't know, Tome of Horrors has a lot of weird stuff. Night of Frozen Shadows specifically uses Blindheims, Caryatid Columns, and Executioner's Hoods. You might make a case for the columns, but the other two seem like D&D-isms.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

To me, it's more about taking a stand. They screwed up. I'm leaving. I'm not coming back just because they apologized, because I can't trust that they're sincere. Especially since we know they apologized because they were losing money, not because they really accept that they screwed up.

So farewell and have fun on your new journey. I think there are wonderful other systems from independant creators out there who need your money more than WotC.
I for my part will honor people who do know how to apologize correctly, even if it takes a while. The world is not getting better by denying people the right to correct their mistakes (and even make it better than it was before).

 

[jgbrowning]

Goodness gracious, how many edge cases do we feel WotC needs to worry about before we are just okay with it all?

For me, sadly, literally all of them at this point. Yes, that's extreme, but the past month has been extreme. These concerns can be addressed by WotC by creating an 1.4 OGL that is a copy of 1.0a but includes additional verbiage about it being irrevocable and non-unathorizable.

joe b.