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.

​

 

[Sacrosanct]

Assuming you're still talking about ACKS, here (I'm not sure at this point),

I wasn't talking about ACKS, (I honestly wasn't familiar with it) so I went to look it up. Apparently discussion about it is banned from the big Purple, but not because the admins have it on a banned list due they don't approve of the content, but because the creator Alexander Macris threatened legal action against the site and owners, so the topic is banned in general based on defensive and self-protection measures. It's nothing like the blacklist kept on the other site, and any comparison of the two is pretty disingenuous. (not that you're doing that, for clarity)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Who knows who will be enforcing it?

I mean in this case we knew who - WotC. They were explicit about wanting to be the final arbiters. Which means certain priorities, because they're a corporation. That means you wouldn't get a "purple site"-type approach, which was slanted and arcane even by far left standards. Rather you'd get an "is this embarrassing" approach, which, ironically, means the "court of US public opinion" is the main arbiter (good if you want to deal with anti-Black or anti-Asian racism, bad for any other kind of racism as it's likely to be ignored or shrugged at, for example).

WoTC is an offender, and it is still being cited as one of the reasons they wanted to replace the OGL with a new one. That seems false to me.

The lack of real acknowledgement that WotC was a more major offender here than 3PPs rings false, but I think it was a genuine concern, just not a particularly valid one. Like, someone can genuinely be worried about something, but it doesn't mean the fear is reasonable. Indeed this is one of the great issues society faces in this era - where a lot of people have unreasonable fears about unreal or basically irrelevant things and a lack of fear about real and relevant things.

 

[Alzrius]

Like, someone can genuinely be worried about something, but it doesn't mean the fear is reasonable. Indeed this is one of the great issues society faces in this era - where a lot of people have unreasonable fears about unreal or basically irrelevant things and a lack of fear about real and relevant things.

I just wanted to take a moment to heartily endorse this statement; I think that it's much more pervasive than a lot of people realize (or like to admit).

 

[S'mon]

At one level this is true. But at the other level remember who put together that list. They're not that bright and IIRC not everyone who was tagged with "green" or "yellow" is actually someone who puts out games with sexist or racist tropes. It's just someone who they could put those colors on because they hadn't outright said or published something that they labelled "woke". (Though also some of those folks tagged "green" immediately started making statements to get themselves put onto the red list if they heard about the list. Still, I wouldn't trust the judgments of the folks making that list).

Not only does the list not require sexism or racism for 'green' status, extreme racism (& presumably sexism) will get you put on the red list. There are at least two examples in red there, Vikernes and Bledsaw Jnr.

 

[S'mon]

I just wanted to take a moment to heartily endorse this statement; I think that it's much more pervasive than a lot of people realize (or like to admit).

I definitely think WoTC's purported fear of Disney & Meta taking advantage of the OGL was irrational, and probably indicative of a bunker mentality.

 

[S'mon]

I guess I'll just say this. For anyone who thinks there isn't a risk of problematic stuff being in the OGL, luckily the folks over at another site have compiled a list of publishers and put them in a category of green, yellow, and red. Green being publishers who won't bend the knee to woke activists and will focus on putting out games that still use racist and sexists tropes. So there you go. A nice convenient list for everyone who has been asking where this stuff is.

Just to be clear, there are plenty of inoffensive companies on the green list who probably share many opinions with those on red, they just haven't expressed them, or not in a way that gets them in red. The list is also highly erratic of course, AFAICT Kobold Press went on red because one guy didn't like one GMing article in one book having a left/'woke' perspective, even while it was set alongside a bunch of other articles from a variety of perspectives, including crusty grognards like Tim Kask. So it's of limited use IMO whether you want to buy red/avoid green, or vice versa. Many 'reds' and 'greens' are pretty standard games companies without much real difference in perspective and marketing.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is a review of the product, not a link to the product. Also, 'know your enemy' is a better aphorism than 'bury your head in the sand'.

I literally already responded to that point.

As for aphorisms, you don’t need to give Nazis oxygen in order to know their tactics and such.

 

[S'mon]

I'm not trying to say there is. I'm pointing out how WotC is seeing these creators come out and say they will start creating stuff that's problematic just to "fight back against the woke mob" or whatever similar phrase they use.

While I do personally find Gillespie rather obnoxious (according to a Barrowmaze reviewer, he makes his students buy copies of his game books to pass his college course! And he was mean to me on Facebook! ) I very much doubt anything by him & similar writers would ever trigger WoTC's Harmful Content overwatch.

 

[teitan]

they aren’t using the OGL though from my understanding, so this goes back to ‘how does revoking the OGL help with that’

No they aren’t but there is a fear of them doing that and a misunderstanding by the higher ups that using the OGL means WOTC has some sort of attachment or endorsement.

 

[teitan]

More proof that TSR/WoTC are the worst offenders?

The Orcs of Thar - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Looking at the general reviews/blog posts that come up from a search, there is nothing on racism. The only complaint I saw was about it being too goofy.

I will have to search for the thread here, I guess.

The painful part about this one is the assumption that it was the approach to Orcs in every TSR product. Like yeah sure and every TSR world has an amusement park in it too.