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.

​

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I don’t think it’s a concern of WOTC or ours now. The OGL isn’t going anywhere or an ongoing concern any more or really ever since they released their ongoing concern to CC-BY.

The 3.5 SRD hs something like 2x the content of the 5.1 SRD and many 3PP products rely on it. It would be good gesture to the community to release it to CC. If they don’t care about the 3.5 SRD, that makes it all the easier to do.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Seen a section of this interview taken out of context online...

That Kyle Brink said

"I think there's been mistakes made in years past where people assumed that d&d players were all you know white dudes in a basement which is which has been a faulty assumption for a lot of years and gets more and more false every day and so it's in my viewpoint honestly guys like me you can't can't leave soon enough for this Hobby"

Implying that he (and therefore WotC) think CIS white guys should leave the hobby.

I think it is important to see it in context.

Where as if you put it in context he is answering a question about leadership positions at WotC, and the fact they are still dominated by CIS white men, and he is looking forward to more diverse talent moving up through the ranks to replace him.

Here's the context I've cleaned up the transcript a little. Happens from 47:02 in the video.

Jeremy Cobb: In terms of hiring diversity this actually speaks to one thing that Orion Black said in their statements. Which is that they believed that they were essentially a diversity hire. Which look we're all here we're all in favor of diversity but ultimately I think what makes the difference in a company like this is if you have minority people in positions of power and while I'm sure that there have been numerous hirings of people from a variety of different minorities at least in the case of racial minorities I've met a number of people who including yourself who are fairly high up in D&D and I think every single one of them has been white and also I think all of them have been CIS men.

Not to say that everybody there is a CIS man but it seems to be consistently that we have white CIS men still at the top of these groups can you identify any specific positions of like significant power um because you've got you got I mean even on the D&D team you still got you've still got Jeremy Crawford, you still got uh Mike Merles, and so forth what can you identify any specific positions that have like higher ranking positions that have been filled by people of say racially diverse backgrounds?

Kyle Brink: I think if you look at the the credits of our books you'll see some lead designers there who are are not CIS men you will also see a lot of primary authors on sources. These are folks who are coming up through the ranks and proving themselves and earning their respect not because of who they are but because of how they are as professionals. Which is the best kind of respect, right? You know you don't want to be respected because you're the diversity hire you want to be respected because you're awesome at your job and that's and that's happening more and more.

This you know look guys like me we're we're leaving the workforce, to be blunt and we're also not this is not the face of the hobby anymore. I'm not the majority of this hobby anymore and I and so it's important to me that my team of creators look like my players, and have the lived experience that my players do, and I think there's been mistakes made in years past where people assumed that d&d players were all you know white dudes in a basement um which is which has been a faulty assumption for a lot of years and gets more and more false every day and so it's in my viewpoint honestly guys like me you can't can't leave soon enough for this Hobby and we owe you good games we owe you good products and so we need to make sure that everybody working on it is real good at it, and that means not just hiring but also developing right when we bring people in who are good we need to empower them give them more room to run. Give them guidance on what we learned when we were creating stuff so that they can create great stuff too and then you know I always hire people smarter than me so that I can get out of their way that's my Approach uh and so as as long as we stay on this trajectory yeah this is this is the face of d d will literally change.

This - precisely this. Thank you for going through and posting the quotes and context.

 

[Riley]

Bull.

People block if you need to. Take ZERO pressure from anyone else about it.

A block (ignore) list is a wonderful thing for maintaining civility.

Note that the list can be set to be invisible/one-way- thereby not advertising to the people you have blocked that you are not reading their posts. Also, it can be set so the blocked posts are only hidden behind spoiler-like tabs when they are quoted by others.

 

[Retreater]

Sometimes a person can make a statement that causes a knee jerk reaction that the context is forgotten. Especially with the broader picture that many of us have felt in recent months that WotC doesn't care about large portions of the community. Some have even attributed the OGL debacle to try to bring more young people into the hobby while alienating older millennials and GenXers.
And you know, when I was looking at the computer monitor, Kyle Brink literally looked like me. Gray in the beard, dark-framed glasses, similar age, etc. And it's scary to hear someone say - even in the context - that my generation is losing its influence in the hobby industry. Even if it's true, and even if it NEEDS to be true.
There are more people who came in with 5e than any other edition. I'm assuming most of those newer players are also younger. I know at my tables I'm frequently the oldest player - in some cases nearly 30 years older than the average.
Am I going to be intimidated by this? Scared? I shouldn't be. Like Kyle said (though more about design than playing the game), I'm teaching the next generation of Dungeon Masters.

 

[Alzrius]

The 3.5 SRD hs something like 2x the content of the 5.1 SRD and many 3PP products rely on it. It would be good gesture to the community to release it to CC. If they don’t care about, that makes it all the easier to do.

While I think the 3.5 SRD is extremely important to the third-party community, I don't want WotC to put it under Creative Commons. That's because a CC license isn't any safer than the OGL; it just seems safer. WotC can still threaten litigation against anyone, at any time, for any reason; regardless of the legal veracity of their claim, the idea of "you'd go bankrupt defending yourself, even if you're right" remains. And I have no doubt that you'd be right no matter which license you used, since most of the lawyers that I'm aware of said that WotC's ability to revoke/de-authorize the OGL was shaky at best.

What putting the 3.5 SRD under CC does is create two markets of 3.5-compatible products, operating in parallel. That's an issue, because it bisects what's been (to my mind) the strongest utility of the open gaming community, which is that they can freely reuse and modify everyone else's Open Game Content. Now, you'd have two distinct categories of products, each under their own license. Want to use some cool new material from product X in your product Y? Too bad! Your product Y is an OGL product, and product X was published under Creative Commons!

Now, maybe there's a way to use both licenses in the same product at the same time, but honestly that seems like a tricky tightrope to walk. Far better to keep that entire market united under a single license, like it has been for almost twenty-five years.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

A block (ignore) list is a wonderful thing for maintaining civility.

Note that the list can be set to be invisible/one-way- thereby not advertising to the people you have blocked that you are not reading their posts. Also, it can be set so the blocked posts are only hidden behind spoiler-like tabs when they are quoted by others.

True, but not sure how this is helpful. It doesn't change the fact that blocking is a passive-aggressive mechanism when used outside the realm of protecting yourself from some creep who is cyber-stalking you. The better path IMO is to just tell the person you're done with that you're done with the line of conversation. Actually, the better path is to pursue the line of conversation so that you can both learn something from it.

Blocking someone is an online phenomenon. Imagine interacting with someone in the real world in this way. What do you think the reaction would be from those you interact with?

 

[Bagpuss]

A block (ignore) list is a wonderful thing for maintaining civility.

Note that the list can be set to be invisible/one-way- thereby not advertising to the people you have blocked that you are not reading their posts. Also, it can be set so the blocked posts are only hidden behind spoiler-like tabs when they are quoted by others.

Yeah unfortunately it screws up the numbering on the forum for you.

 

[Riley]

Yeah unfortunately it screws up the numbering on the forum for you.

I don’t understand. How so?

I see your post as 417. There are a couple missing numbers on a page when I am on my default viewing setting, and those ignored posts reappear at their previously-missing post numbers when I press the “show ignored content” button. The other numbers stay the same.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I don’t understand. How so?

I see your post as 417. There are a couple missing numbers on a page when I am on my default viewing setting, and those ignored posts reappear at their previously-missing post numbers when I press the “show ignored content” button. The other numbers stay the same.

Is there an equivalent solution if you are the poster being ignored?

 

[Bagpuss]

I don’t understand. How so?

I see your post as 417. There are a couple missing numbers on a page when I am on my default viewing setting, and those ignored posts reappear at their previously-missing post numbers when I press the “show ignored content” button. The other numbers stay the same.

More the page numbers, or at least it use to, they might have fixed it. Doesn't happen a lot for me as I don't have anyone on ignore (unless they are a spam bot advertising stuff that occasionally breaks through), just notice it the first time someone disagreed with me and put me on ignore so I couldn't see their post either.