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.

​

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

No, it doesn't. Again, you've mischaracterized my position, and I believe that you've done so deliberately. I am not saying it's wrong for them to work for "any corporation and most large businesses." I'm saying it's wrong for them to work for an organization that makes its money by inflicting suffering and death on people.

Your implication that Big Tobacco can be equated to any other corporation or area of large-scale business is highly disingenuous in that regard; while corporate malfeasance and irresponsibility are areas where such entities (and the people who work at their upper levels) should be condemned, the actual product or service that they offer does not directly cause sickness and death the way tobacco products do.

At this point, I fully expect you to start drawing comparisons between tobacco companies and other companies that offer products which are unhealthy (e.g. fast food chains), to which I'll preemptively say that's a self-evidently false comparison when held up against cigarettes and other such products which are chemically-addictive carcinogens.

Your moral high ground is admirable but is far from realistic. People have jobs, careers. The connection between a single individual's job and any ties to the company they work for, or the corporation that owns that company, or the mega-corp that owns that parent company is much less than tenuous. You're assigning blame to the easy target here, and sadly, the least culpable one. Direct your weaponry to a place where it matters.

 

[Alzrius]

Your moral high ground is admirable but is far from realistic. People have jobs, careers. The connection between a single individual's job and any ties to the company they work for, or the corporation that owns that company, or the mega-corp that owns that parent company is much less than tenuous. You're assigning blame to the easy target here, and sadly, the least culpable one. Direct your weaponry to a place where it matters.

I disagree completely. Saying "people have jobs," which seems to be an implication that changing careers is too great a barrier to overcome, does not excuse taking part in an organization whose primary method of profit-generation is to peddle products that they know kill people. Leaving a job is certainly a daunting prospect, but it's not equally daunting to all people, and the circumstances that would motivate such a career change also vary wildly. I feel very comfortable asserting that not wanting to work for Big Tobacco is a powerful moral motivator, and reasonably comfortable suggesting that Williams' had more choices than working for Altria or becoming impoverished.

Likewise, the idea that "any one person's contribution is too small for them to be culpable" isn't something I find convincing. As you rise up through the corporate hierarchy, you take on more responsibility, and I feel comfortable saying that the position of Associate Finance Director isn't a position so minor that it can claim to have no real culpability for the harm Altria has inflicted on the public.

 

[Sacrosanct]

No, it doesn't. Again, you've mischaracterized my position, and I believe that you've done so deliberately. I am not saying it's wrong for them to work for "any corporation and most large businesses." I'm saying it's wrong for them to work for an organization that makes its money by inflicting suffering and death on people.

Your implication that Big Tobacco can be equated to any other corporation or area of large-scale business is highly disingenuous in that regard; while corporate malfeasance and irresponsibility are areas where such entities (and the people who work at their upper levels) should be condemned, the actual product or service that they offer does not directly cause sickness and death the way tobacco products do.

At this point, I fully expect you to start drawing comparisons between tobacco companies and other companies that offer products which are unhealthy (e.g. fast food chains), to which I'll preemptively say that's a self-evidently false comparison when held up against cigarettes and other such products which are chemically-addictive carcinogens.

So...you said (and are saying) it's OK for you to condemn people who work for companies that harm people. But now you're saying it's for tobacco companies. Sounds like you're drawing an arbitrary line of what you consider harm. Your own comparison about fast food is one. You said it's a false comparison to compare against a chemically addictive carcinogen, but that's exactly what fast food is! Our bodies are addicted to fat and sugar. Add the chemicals and preservatives into it, and its almost just as harmful. I suggest you look up the health costs associated with fast food industry.

Outside of that, you can also include banks. After all, banks foreclose on people, which is actively harming them. Most corporations harm their workers, by not paying living wages and/or treating them like expendable assets easily replaced.

You're drawing a personal line, and that's fine, but it's arbitrary and a giant slippery slope. That's why I disagree we can condemn people and accuse them of supporting the harm the company they work for does. Just doesn't work that way.

 

[HectorsNemesis]

Not sure what he is teaching, but when my professors wanted me to buy their book (provided they had one), it at least was on the right subject… unsurprising it were the economics ones that had a book, the comp sci did not

It is part of his course at Brock University.
"Greg Gillespie (PhD University of Western Ontario) teaches and researches popular culture with a focus on non-mass mediated subjects (including role-playing games, sport culture, and Scottishness)."

 

[Alzrius]

So...you said (and are saying) it's OK for you to condemn people who work for companies that harm people. But now you're saying it's for tobacco companies. Sounds like you're drawing an arbitrary line of what you consider harm.

No, I believe that the line is very clear, to the point of being self-evident.

To that end, I predicted that you'd attempt to blur that line in an attempt to bolster your previous suggestion that every large company is just as harmful as Big Tobacco, and that therefore any condemnation of such activities is easily dismissed. And unsurprisingly, that's exactly the position that you took.

Hence, I'll simply say that it's highly disingenuous, as well as unethical, to state that fast food is either as chemically addictive or as harmful as tobacco products. Nor do tobacco products have any positive impact that offsets their drawbacks the way fast food at least offers some degree of personal sustenance, nor that they offer any service which can be helpful the way banks are. Your assertions that they're of a piece are easy to reject in that regard, not only because they're inappropriate, but because they obscure the issue at hand, rather than clarify it. To that end, I'll bring things back around to the main point:

Altria has inflicted more harm upon a greater number of people for a longer period of time than Milo Yiannopoulos has, and therefore working for them is more immoral than working for him; this holds true even if you try to say that the number of people who work for the former is so much greater that it "dilutes" the culpability, since people who were in the upper ranks of the organization – like Williams – are still more responsible for its actions. Furthermore, Williams being a woman in no way ameliorates that.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Likewise, the idea that "any one person's contribution is too small for them to be culpable" isn't something I find convincing.

If you find yourself making moral and ethical judgements on behalf of others, based on their situations, without fulling understanding what's happening in those people's lives, you're stepping out onto shaky ground.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Hence, I'll simply say that it's highly disingenuous, as well as unethical, to state that fast food is either as chemically addictive or as harmful as tobacco products.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but the science says it is. If you're not surprised I went in this direction, it's because I'm following the science, not because I'm being disingenuous or unethical. I really wish you wouldn't make accusations like that.

"Multiple studies in rats show that they can become physically addicted to junk food in the same way that they become addicted to drugs of abuse (4Trusted Source)."

 

[Alzrius]

If you find yourself making moral and ethical judgements on behalf of others, based on their situations, without fulling understanding what's happening in those people's lives, you're stepping out onto shaky ground.

Finding that someone who worked at an executive-level position with one of the world's largest tobacco companies is at greater moral fault than someone who worked for Milo Yiannopoulos is ground I find quite steady.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

To that end, I predicted that you'd attempt to blur that line in an attempt to bolster your previous suggestion that every large company is just as harmful as Big Tobacco, and that therefore any condemnation of such activities is easily dismissed. And unsurprisingly, that's exactly the position that you took.

You're going to need to put a stop to the insinuations and personal attacks.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Finding that someone who worked at an executive-level position with one of the world's largest tobacco companies is at greater moral fault than someone who worked for Milo Yiannopoulos is ground I find quite steady.

You do you, but let's just say I disagree that someone who was an associate finance director is at greater moral fault based on that job title than someone who literally has espoused pro-nazi and pro-pedophilia views.