Is it time to revive the D20 License? (Or equivalent)

[MatthewJHanson]

There's been a lot of talk recently about the OGL, but very little about 2000's other big license, the D20 License.

For those of who weren't around back then, the quick version was that the d20 License was something that publishers could us along with the OGL during 3rd editions run, but the d20 License had more strings attached, such as not allowing you to include character creation rules, and they later added some contents standards in response to the infamous Book of Erotic Fantasy (I'm not making that up).

In exchange, the publisher got to put a logo on the front of the book declaring that they were compatible with D&D.

I wonder if this approach might be the way to solve our current crisis. WotC can leave the OGL as is, but also offers a "D&D Compatible" log, sort of like the one their showing with the OGL 1.2, and to display that you need to agree to certain standards.

 

[Pedantic]

That would be a fine and lovely thing for them to do, but it does not seem to be their current preferred approach. They do not seem to be comfortable with D&D existing as it has in the past, with an open license.

 

[Steampunkette]

That's -exactly- what they're doing.

They're just calling it "OGL 1.2a" and the OGL is being called "Creative Commons 4"

Complete with the logos available with the OGL 1.2a that you can put on your work.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Yes. This would be a entirely acceptable approach. All current and future open game content would remain open under the OGL. The right to use a logo and claim compatibility with D&D handled by a license with more restrictions.

 

[trancejeremy]

This does seem like the ideal solution except we've gotten so used to pushing content for use with D&D without having something like this that

It worked earlier because WOTC built up d20 as a brand, equating it with D&D by having the logo on its D&D books. So there was value in using that due to brand association.

And consequently when they killed d20, it hurt people who made d20 products and made them realize they needed to build their own brand

 

[kunadam]

5e might be unofficial, but now I definitely equate it with something like the d20 logo for 3.x