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.

​

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

I think this was the key misunderstanding at WotC, yeah.

They didn't seem to realize that the OGL didn't mean jack to anyone, and would have just confused the hell out of the mainstream media if people tried to explain it to them, and they certainly wouldn't have understood a vague, GPL-like licence (the easiest touchstone for them) as an endorsement by WotC. Indeed if anything they'd have got on the "Why are people trying to smear a poor innocent corporation?" side of things.

I presume this is partly the entire thing collapsed so profoundly and even inverted into putting the SRD into CC, a more extreme position than the OGL, because finally someone at the Dan Rawson or Cynthia Williams level went "Ohhhhhhhhhh I get it - what the hell are we doing?!" and frowned angrily at whatever team had been creating this misunderstanding (definitely not Kyle's team from his account).

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.

Did people really think that? I've never seen that view expressed.

But weirdly 5E acquired pretty much the most regressive take on Orcs since 1E/2E - 3E and 4E weren't great, but it was 5E that basically did the "racist textbook from the 1950s" deal to the Orcs and is part of why Volos has been intentionally made OOP even in digital.

 

[Sacrosanct]

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.

The entire discussion around that list is pretty clear what it's meant for. If a publisher even mentions how they support diversity or inclusivity, they go right to the red list, usually with a lot of folks making disparaging comments about wokeness (I won't repeat the more offensive comments, which you already know since you've been part of that discussion on that site yourself). It's no secret what is considered a green company and what is red, regardless of any outlier example you provide.

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.

Again, for clarity, I'm not saying Greg has racist or sexist material in his stuff. I'm saying he has said how he won't include any of WoTC's "woke nonsense" in his games. He's just one of many who are using the same phrases and terminology as people like LaNasa, and Ernie, and Dave, and a bunch others, so from WoTC's perspective, there are people using the OGL (or should use the OGL) who have publicly stated their vitriol towards WotC's direction of game design, which is a red flag to them. You don't have to have a bunch of examples of racist OGL stuff, you only need a credible threat it will happen to make them address like they did in the revision.

 

[mamba]

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.

my point was not about the merits of revoking the OGL over it. I simply wanted to say that this is the reason why I chose this book as an example. It is the only one I am aware of that was mentioned as an example and that also used the OGL.

Anything not using the OGL simply is not a good example for that reason alone, even if the book itself is much ‘worse’

 

[Myrdin Potter]

The thread is here:

D&D General - "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

Hi, in this thread I will document the racially and culturally problematic facets of the D&D book GAZ10: The Orcs of Thar (1988). For an overview, see Shannon Appelcline's product write-up at DriveThruRPG. I write this as a long-time aficionado of D&D, and of the Known World of Mystara. I...

www.enworld.org

@Dungeonosophy has the most important posts, but doesn't really address the also severe anti-Black racism present in the book.

As for "no-one is saying it's racist", yeah, I know, but that tells us a lot about the people talking about it, rather than about the book.

Thanks. That was a good thread and the OP was very good at being specific at what they had objections to with the background of why it was bad without being sensationalist or based solely on personal perception.

I was playing either Runequest or Champions by then, and did not buy any of those books. The only Basic is played was Holmes Basic.

 

[S'mon]

The entire discussion around that list is pretty clear what it's meant for. If a publisher even mentions how they support diversity or inclusivity, they go right to the red list, usually with a lot of folks making disparaging comments about wokeness (I won't repeat the more offensive comments, which you already know since you've been part of that discussion on that site yourself). It's no secret what is considered a green company and what is red, regardless of any outlier example you provide.

The primary intent is to warn Red Blooded Americans away from 'woke' companies, yes. I'm saying you definitely can't guarantee a company is woke from it being in the red list, and you can't guarantee it isn't woke from it being in the green list. The descriptions may be more useful, but even then the level of vitriol in the description often seems due mostly to one person's personal experience of that company.

 

[Alzrius]

He's just one of many who are using the same phrases and terminology

Shorthand being what it is, I'm not surprised that people aren't listing everything they have a problem with in exacting detail. While it would be more helpful to expressly say something like "I disagree that fixed ability score modifiers for PC races are indicative of, let alone an endorsement of, biological determinism," I can't help but put that into context with a post I made yesterday in response to someone saying that it was tiresome to put "in my opinion," or even something like "YMMV," in a post.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

The primary intent is to warn Red Blooded Americans away from 'woke' companies, yes. I'm saying you definitely can't guarantee a company is woke from it being in the red list, and you can't guarantee it isn't woke from it being in the green list. The descriptions may be more useful, but even then the level of vitriol in the description often seems due mostly to one person's personal experience of that company.

It is so arbitrary and ham handed, I kind of assumed that it was meant to generate more site visits and ad revenue than anything else.

 

[Clint_L]

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.

The world we live in...

But honestly, free speech is a thing. It's not WotC's job to police the entire RPG sphere, or even the 5e compatible sphere. This is where their new official badge of approval can be used to make sure that objectionable content is not associated with their product. That's enough.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The world we live in...

But honestly, free speech is a thing. It's not WotC's job to police the entire RPG sphere, or even the 5e compatible sphere. This is where their new official badge of approval can be used to make sure that objectionable content is not associated with their product. That's enough.

Sure. I wasn't trying to defend their attempts at controlling content as a good thing. Only explaining why they thought it was needed.

 

[teitan]

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.

It helps with a link so we have a convenient access to avoid lol