We All Won – The OGL Three Years Later

[bsss]

Additionally, by picking CC-BY rather than CC-BY-SA, Wizards has abandoned part of the principle of the commons, the "copyleft" nature, of the OGL. Beyond the possibility of changing the license for 6E, as above, there's no guarantee that the most popular 5.2 SRD fork, which will plausbly come to pass when WotC abandons it for 6E, will remain open. Between this and poisoning the OGL 1.0a in some folks' eyes, they've hurt the community. Not a ton, compared to the damage they could have done, but I don't think these actions were a net add to the hobby by any means.

 

[Reynard]

Nothing in the current CC/OGL/GSL prevents Hasbro from announcing the new D&D 6E will be closed source. No OGL or CC. All the current OGL/CC license means is that the current version of D&D 5x SRD is forever available for others to use.

Very possible that in a few years we are having a discussion much like the 'OGL being canceled V2' of three years ago when Hasbro announces D&D V6 (or whatever it gets called).

IMO - a 6E is almost assured at some point. The question is will Hasbro take the risk of making it closed source to maximize profits and control or put the 6E SRD out under CC or similar?

And when that happens, what will the 5E holdout community look like? Will there be a Pathfinder like move by someone with the 5E ruleset? With 2 5E contenders in place -- ToV and A5E -- it seems like some portion of the base would continue playing 5E, but how many? How many current D&D players care about the specifics of the system?

 

[delericho]

What would a better outcome look like?

I deleted my previous reply, but I do owe this a proper response.

My view is that everything good that has happened since (and there is quite a lot, as your OP lays out) was either possible regardless of the OGL situation (things like the DDB market), or alternately happened despite what happened rather than because of it. So a better outcome would look much like we have, but without that misstep by WotC and all the fallout that came from it.

 

[Corinnguard]

IMO - a 6E is almost assured at some point. The question is will Hasbro take the risk of making it closed source to maximize profits and control or put the 6E SRD out under CC or similar?

It depends on if Hasbro is still around in 10 years, who is running it by then and how they are running it.

And when that happens, what will the 5E holdout community look like? Will there be a Pathfinder like move by someone with the 5E ruleset? With 2 5E contenders in place -- ToV and A5E -- it seems like some portion of the base would continue playing 5E, but how many? How many current D&D players care about the specifics of the system?

Wouldn't the existence of ToV and A5e already be considered a Pathfinder-like move? Both made their debut when 2024 D&D was still being called D&D One and everyone was speculating as to what was going to be in it.

 

[Reynard]

Wouldn't the existence of ToV and A5e already be considered a Pathfinder-like move? Both made their debut when 2024 D&D was still being called D&D One and everyone was speculating as to what was going to be in it.

But WotC hasn't stopped publishing 5E material, so there can't be a Pathfinder for it.

 

[Corinnguard]

But WotC hasn't stopped publishing 5E material, so there can't be a Pathfinder for it.

It was the same story when WoTC was publishing 4e material. They continued to publish new material for 4e even as Paizo started going down a different path with Pathfinder. Paizo created a fork in the road for those of us who wanted a continuation of 3.5e. ToV and A5e are doing the same thing.

 

[Reynard]

It was the same story when WoTC was publishing 4e material. They continued to publish new material for 4e even as Paizo started going down a different path with Pathfinder. Paizo created a fork in the road for those of us who wanted a continuation of 3.5e. ToV and A5e are doing the same thing.

5.5 is not a different edition, nor did it change the rules of 3PP availability. Those are why Pathfinder was made and succeeded.

 

[Morrus]

Nothing in the current CC/OGL/GSL prevents Hasbro from announcing the new D&D 6E will be closed source. No OGL or CC. All the current OGL/CC license means is that the current version of D&D 5x SRD is forever available for others to use.

Unless 6E is so different as to be unrecognisable, with entirely new game mechanics unrelated to the existing corpus of D&D, I cannot see how you would not be able to use the existing open content to make compatible content for 6E, just like people used the 3E open content to make clones of 1E and 2E.

 

[Morrus]

Wouldn't the existence of ToV and A5e already be considered a Pathfinder-like move? Both made their debut when 2024 D&D was still being called D&D One and everyone was speculating as to what was going to be in it.

I'm pretty sure D&D One was first announced the year after A5E launched. Because we were like "Typical. How could D&D NOT announce a new edition immediately after we announced a major version of the current edition?"

I mean, it’s fair enough. It’s their game. But just our luck with the timing!

 

[Corinnguard]

I'm pretty sure D&D One was first announced the year after A5E launched. Because we were like "Typical. How could D&D NOT announce a new edition immediately after we announced a major version of the current edition?"

I found it amusing when I came across mention of the three pillars of gameplay in the 2024 PHB. The book talked about the three pillars while Level Up actually dove into class features that covered each of them.