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.

​

 

[Scribe]

ahem. I think you meant the 80s

(as I type this I'm listening to 80s music right now. 1984 was the best year for music. Van Halen 1984, Scorpions Love at First Sting, Metallica Ride the Lightning, Iron maiden, etc. )

We may need to specify genre but I can't argue against that too much.

 

[Iosue]

ahem. I think you meant the 80s

(as I type this I'm listening to 80s music right now. 1984 was the best year for music. Van Halen 1984, Scorpions Love at First Sting, Metallica Ride the Lightning, Iron maiden, etc. )

Best of both worlds! Duran Duran was what I listened to when my mom drove me to school, and Big Head Todd and the Monsters are what I listened to when I drove myself to school!

 

[Micah Sweet]

They have Quests of Yore (from Onward) , but your post also made me realize that there are 3+ Star Wars rpg's as well... and I honestly forgot about the Marvel rpg coming out. So they've been trying to break into this market for a while.

EDIT: None of which have succeeded in or seemed posed to knock D&D off its pedestal.

No licensed RPG, no matter how well-designed, is going to become more popular than D&D. More's the pity, really.

 

[Alzrius]

The advantage of putting 3.5 in CC is that it utterly removes any incentive for future WotC execs to try and deauthorize OGL 1.0. That shores up the banks of the OGL’s safe harbor, allowing creators to make use of it if they want access to the older material, or of its inherent share alike provision. The creators using the CC license are likely going to be the ones who keep all or virtually all their stuff behind product identity anyway.

Leaving aside that I'm not sure how "Product Identity" works under Creative Commons (i.e. I don't believe they use that term), I'm honestly not concerned about future WotC execs trying to revoke/de-authorize the OGL, because it's ultimately a "six of one, half-dozen of the other" situation.

The practical impact of the OGL being revoked/de-authorized is that if WotC does that, they'll sue you for copyright infringement if you try to publish anything (that uses one of their SRDs) under it after the date they supposedly terminate the license. But as multiple lawyers here and elsewhere have noted, that's not a strategy that's likely to succeed, in terms of legal merit; anyone saying that they've committed no infringement because the OGL is still valid regardless of WotC says will probably succeed.

And yet numerous publishers are still running away from the OGL, apparently under the belief that whether or not they could win in court is less important than the fact that they'd presumably never be able to afford the legal fees. In other words, that WotC doesn't need to win in order to make whoever they sue lose.

But that idea, that WotC can sue you and bankrupt you via the process regardless of the legal merits (or lack thereof) of their arguments is an issue which works regardless of the license you use. There are plenty of instances of civil suits being filed over Creative Commons.

Which is to say that this idea, that material released under Creative Commons guarantees that WotC won't revoke/de-authorize the OGL because doing so would be functionally irrelevant, strikes me as being hopeful (almost desperately so) rather than any sort of reliable guarantee of safety for publishers. Because unless one of WotC's SRDs is the only Open Game Content you've used, then you can't just transfer an existing OGL product line over to Creative Commons if WotC tries to terminate the OGL; every product that you cite in your Section 15 has to make the jump to CC also, and that's probably not going to be the case in a considerable number of instances.

Plus, you know, the entire "parallel market" I mentioned before; while I foresee 3.5 SRD-derived Creative Commons products as being in the distinct minority (since they don't have twenty-three years' worth of products to draw upon), they're still going to create a distinct niche of games which operate in their own sphere of sharing, apart from the OGL, representing what I think is an unfortunate fragmentation of what was otherwise a fairly united open gaming market.

For what it's worth, the same results (i.e. a shoring up of the "safe harbor") could have been made if WotC released a hypothetical OGL v1.0b – which added the word "irrevocable" and clarified what "authorized" meant – and then simply turned ownership of that version of the OGL over to the non-profit organization that Paizo and Azora Law are creating to safeguard their ORC license. But given that organization doesn't exist yet, I suppose that's a bit too pie in the sky.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Apparently the music from that great era (late 70s to early 90s) has been playing in my breakfast hangout long enough that it has latched onto the brains of the 20-something staff that have been there a bit, and you can catch them singing along. Notably not Van Halen, Scorpians, Metallica, or Iron Maiden though

What is that meme? "Hey radio stations, what do you mean "Hits from the 70s, 80s, and today? There are 30 years between the 80s and today!"

We may need to specify genre but I can't argue against that too much.

Oh, I love it all. I was just in a rock mood. But R&B and pop in the 80s were also great. Duran Duran is still one of my favorite guilty pleasures.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Bull.

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

I don’t think that blocking is wrong.

I was not surprised because I felt they were avoiding what they posted and it is an avoidance mechanism. I think it would have been easier to edit their original post and say, “oops, I missed what you were saying” but everyone can block whoever they want.

Otherwise I do not care if someone blocks me and I support the forum function that allows it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t block them because even if there is no chance I will agree with them in whatever topic we currently discuss and our differences clearly go way beyond that, it does not mean they might not have something to say on another that I would have liked to hear.

Also, their dosage is much easier to regulate online

I agree with this. Never blocked anyone, even those I strongly disagree with most of the time. At least a couple people have blocked me though, and I wish they hadn't.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Anecdotes are not data, and the world is large, and the number of women, people of colour, and other groups in the hobby has indeed increased over recent decades, even if it hasn't right next to you. Inclusivity is important.

Absolutely. But the phrasing used is not very inclusive. Clever people can consider it only an unlucky hyperbole. It is important to reduce it in its context. The point is: do the same attention for the context would be applied reversing the color? I'm afraid not.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Just reading the text, it is racist. Seeing him saying it, how he said, and what he was responding too is different IMO.

He as specifically being grilled about non-white cis male's in leadership positions. His reply was basically about the diverse younger generation in WotC taking over for the older generation when they move on. Basically he was saying, it will happen, but it takes time.

Not say it was worded the best, but I agree with his overall sentiment.

You are talking about contextualization. A very rare thing this times. Everywhere.

 

[Imaro]

Absolutely. But the phrasing used is not very inclusive. Clever people can consider it only an unlucky hyperbole. It is important to reduce it in its context. The point is: do the same attention for the context would be applied reversing the color? I'm afraid not.

Reversing the color (race) would make the statement nonsensical...