Kyle Brink (D&D Exec Producer) On OGL Controversy & One D&D (Summary)

The YouTube channel 3 Black Halflings spoke to WotC's Kyle Brink (executive producer, D&D) about the recent Open Game License events, amongst other things. It's an hour-plus long interview (which you can watch below) but here are some of the highlights of what Brink said. Note these are my paraphrases, so I encourage you to listen to the actual interview for full context if you have time.

OGL v1.1 Events

• There was a concern that the OGL allowed Facebook to make a D&D Metaverse without WotC involvement.
• Re. the OGL decisions, WotC had gotten themselves into a 'terrible place' and are grateful for the feedback that allowed them to see that.
• The royalties in OGL v1.1 were there as a giant deterrent to mega corporations.
• Kyle Brink is not familiar with what happened in the private meetings with certain publishers in December, although was aware that meetings were taking place.
• When the OGL v1.1 document became public, WotC had already abandoned much of it.
• The response from WotC coinciding with D&D Beyond subscription cancellations was a coincidence as it takes longer than that to modify a legal document.
• The atmosphere in WotC during the delay before making an announcement after the OGL v1.1 went public was 'bad' -- fear of making it worse if they said anything. The feeling was that they should not talk, just deliver the new version.
• Brink does not know who wrote the unpopular 'you won but we won too' announcement and saw it the same time we did. He was not happy with it.
• 'Draft' contracts can have dates and boxes for signatures. Despite the leaked version going to some publishers, it was not final or published.
• There were dissenting voices within WotC regarding the OGL v1.1, but once the company had agreed how to proceed, everybody did the best they could to deliver.
• The dissenting voices were not given enough weight to effect change. Brinks' team is now involved in the process and can influence decisions.
• The SRD release into Creative Commmons is a one-way door; there can be no takeback.

One D&D

• The intention is that all of the new [One D&D] updates they are doing, "the SRD will be updated to remain compatible with all of that". This might be with updted rules or with bridging language like 'change the word race to species'.
• Anything built with the current SRD will be 100% compatible with the new rules.
• Brink does not think there is a plan to, and does not see the value, in creating a new OGL just for One D&D. When/if they put more stuff into the public space, they'd do it through Creative Commons.
• WotC doesn't think of One D&D as a new edition. He feels it's more like what happened with 3.5. They think 5E is great, but coud be better and play faster and easier with more room for roleplay, so there is stuff they can do to improve it but not replace it.

Inclusivity

• WotC is leaning on the community to discourage bad actors and hateful content, rather than counting on a legal document.
• They are working on an adaptable content policy describing what they consider to be hateful content which will apply to WotC's work (no legal structure to apply it to anybody else).
• They now have external inclusivity reviewers (as of last fall) who look over every word and report back. They are putting old content through the same process before reprints.
• Previously cultural consultances were used for spot reviews on things they thought might be problematic, but not everything (e.g. Hadozee).
• The problematic Hadozee content was written by a trusted senior person at WotC, and very few people saw it before publication.
• 'DnDShorts' video on the internal workings and management culture of WotC is not something Brinks can talk on, but it is not reflective of his team. Each team has its own culture.
• In the last couple of years the D&D team hiring process has made the team more inclusive.
• When asked about non white-CIS-men in leadership positions at WotC, Brinks referred to some designers and authors. He said 'guys like me, we're leaving the workforce, to be blunt' and 'I'm not the face of the hobby any more'. It is important that the creators at WotC look like the players. 'Guys like me can't leave soon enough'.

Virtual Tabletops (VTTs)/Digital Gaming

• Goal is to make more ways to play ('and' not 'instead') including a cool looking 3D space.
• Digital gaming is not meant to replace books etc., but to be additive.
• The strategy is to give players a choice, and WotC will go where the player interests lie.

​

 

[dave2008]

He said that oneD&D is 5e, and vice versa.

This does not seem ambiguous. They have used the evolution analogy since the first reveal of OneD&D. It means that 5e will get tweaks and updates over time, but no break as with previous editions. This has already been happening for nine years; it's why you can now play a Tortle Artificer.

He did specifically mention it as being like a 5.5 too though (IIRC). I took that, from context, to mean that he sees it as 5e, not a new edition (i.e. 6e).

 

[mamba]

If I create a subclass based on the 5.1 SRD it won't work seamlessly with the way 1D&D subclasses are currently supposed to work, so "100% compatible" wouldn't be my words of choice.

compatible does not mean identical, also, this was not about the 5.1 SRD but about the future SRD for 1DD

 

[mamba]

'Draft' contracts can have dates and boxes for signatures. Despite the leaked version going to some publishers, it was not final or published.

or rather, any draft can become the final version by both sides agreeing to it, there is no real distinction between a draft and a final version.

 

[Retreater]

First, thank you for posting the summary of this video.

I'm going to really attempt a measured response to this:

I don't buy it. I think it's corporate spin and putting out Kyle on a goodwill tour of the community. Instead of apologizing, WotC is gaslighting the community: "We weren't really going to do that. Everything you heard about is lies. This was our plan all along."
The thing is ... we know. We know they were planning an awful arrangement with publishers and that awful arrangement was sent out. Do we think companies like Kobold Press would distance their relationship with WotC if OGL 1.1 wasn't what they were sent? Do we think Cynthia Williams was joking when she said she thought the gaming community was "under-monetized?"
These are patterns of behavior.
Concerning "the community had no impact on our decisions because we were already going to do it" - yeah, I don't believe that either. They had very public half-steps back that they promoted, scrambling for responses a week later. They were obviously trying to respond to the bad publicity and a deteriorating relationship with fans.

If anything, this video makes me more angry about the whole situation. And I would hope content creators shut down this mouthpiece for corporate lies by not putting Kyle on their channel in the future. WotC is using the community to spread obvious misinformation about their underhanded and anti-fan decisions.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Hasbro is a publically traded company only worth 8.36 billion: Disney can easily make an offer the shareholders would force the board to accept. It's far, far from outside the realm of possibility. They wouldn't do it for D&D, specifically, but for all of Hasbro's assets it's something they have definitely thought about based.on years of reporting.

Briefly on this, and I don't blame you for not necessarily following the Disney news ... but there is absolutely no way in heck that Disney would consider buying Hasbro right now or in the foreseeable future.

Currently, Disney is struggling with debt from the pandemic, Disney+, and especially from the Fox acquisition. They are engaged in massive cost-cutting and facing a well-financed challenge from activist investor (ahem) Nelson Peltz. In addition, with what looks like a challenging downturn coming up and softening demand for the parks, they need to find a way to stop just funneling money from the parks to the gaping moneypit of the streaming service.

Toss in increased scrutiny from the administration for all sorts of M&As (remember Microsoft and Activision, or Penguin/S&S?), and this isn't going to happen.

On the topic at hand, I can understand why a company that was ramping up and investing a ton of money in an area might want to look at the underlying IP issues ... after all, they did something similar (albeit much less draconian) with 4e and the GSL. Pretty spectacular misfire.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

They lost sight of what they were trying to do (protect D&D against a perceived threat from mega media companies), and in the process they destroyed trust with their fans.

But I don't believe this. It's 101 corporate naughty word. They fully knew what they were doing. The second words of the plans would have been communicated (apparently up to two years ago?) the people in charge would have been informed that they were possibly about to create something bad. They just didn't care. They wanted the movie, the lifestyle brand, the plushies, the VTT, the subscriptions, the tie-in with their video games, the microtransactions and all of that.

They did not lost sight of what they were trying to do. It's a multinational hyper-capitalist entity, its number one objective is to generate value for its shareholders. They did exactly that and only reversed course when they realized it was going to decrease value. If there was a way for them to snap their fingers and to enforce what they wanted to without the uproar, it would already be done.

Your view of the corporate world does not match my experience. I've spent 30 years working primarily for Fortune 500 companies including the last 20 years as a consultant at some of the biggest companies in the world.

Corporations are not monolithic Borg-like entities working to achieve the single goal of maximizing profit at all costs. What Kyle described as his team "not being at the table" to share their view about how the OGL will affect creators rings true. I've been in those meetings where we made stupid decisions because we didn't consult the right stakeholders, and I've been the "little people" not consulted about other stupid decisions. It's actually pretty rare that a team "fully knew what they were doing" when they make some really big decisions.

People make multimillion dollar mistakes every single day in the corporate world, and often it's because someone failed to inform and/or consult the right people due to ignorance or laziness. You don't have to be malicious or ill-willed or even greedy to do something dumb that hurts other people.

 

[Parmandur]

Briefly on this, and I don't blame you for not necessarily following the Disney news ... but there is absolutely no way in heck that Disney would consider buying Hasbro right now or in the foreseeable future.

Currently, Disney is struggling with debt from the pandemic, Disney+, and especially from the Fox acquisition. They are engaged in massive cost-cutting and facing a well-financed challenge from activist investor (ahem) Nelson Peltz. In addition, with what looks like a challenging downturn coming up and softening demand for the parks, they need to find a way to stop just funneling shoveling money from the parks to the gaping moneypit of the streaming service.

Toss in increased scrutiny from the administration for all sorts of M&As (remember Microsoft and Activision, or Penguin/S&S?), and this isn't going to happen.

On the topic at hand, I can understand why a company that was ramping up and investing a ton of money in an area might want to look at the underlying IP issues ... after all, they did something similar (albeit much less draconian) with 4e and the GSL. Pretty spectacular misfire.

Oh, fair enough. But it was an idea seriously.bandied about 5-10 years ago, and could be in 5-10 years. Disney and Hasbro is not an out there idea, given how intertwined their business is already.

 

[dave2008]

Wow, I came away with a very different impression. I guess, not surprisingly, our own biases and viewpoints affect how we interpret what we see and hear. I imagine the reality is something between my take and yours. I don't think there is much value in use discussing this (we are to far apart), but I doo want to comment a few specific items though.

First, thank you for posting the summary of this video.

I'm going to really attempt a measured response to this:

I don't buy it. I think it's corporate spin and putting out Kyle on a goodwill tour of the community. Instead of apologizing, WotC is gaslighting the community: "We weren't really going to do that. Everything you heard about is lies. This was our plan all along."

That is not what he said. He didn't deny what was made, but he said it was already changing by the time it was leaked. Because of feedback from the 3PP who were under NDA.

The thing is ... we know. We know they were planning an awful arrangement with publishers and that awful arrangement was sent out.

Again, he didn't deny it - not sure how you got that from watching the video.

Do we think companies like Kobold Press would distance their relationship with WotC if OGL 1.1 wasn't what they were sent?

Black Flag has been in the works long before they were given a draft of the OGL 1.1, if that is what you mean by distancing themselves. Again, he never said the document wasn't sent, I don't were you got that idea.

Concerning "the community had no impact on our decisions because we were already going to do it" - yeah, I don't believe that either.

Again, that is not what he said - did you watch the video? It is fine to mad, but be mad at what he said - don't make things up to get mad at.

 

[wingsandsword]

Oh this was in the works for a while. Before he came to WotC over two years again. And they were afraid if Disney big in the digital space!

The fact they took down the OGL FAQ that said that they couldn't rescind the license in November 2021 (going by Internet Archive records of the WotC site) definitely shows the OGL moves had been brewing for at least a year by the time they dropped the failed 1.1.

I'd fully expect they were thinking longer than that, but that's a pretty hard data point to agree that this was a long time coming, they wanted to put an end to the OGL for some time and were probably trying to figure out SOME legal loophole they could use so they pulled down their public statement that they intended otherwise for the OGL.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I am really frustrated right now. I have ignored so many people and were ignored by others, because I just can't put up woth all those corporate are evil vibes anymore. Instead of talking and trying to discuss it is always the same: lies here, lies there.
I miss the happy place enworld once was.