Ryan Dancey -- Hasbro Cannot Deauthorize OGL

I reached out to the architect of the original Open Gaming License, former VP of Wizard of the Coast, Ryan Dancey, and asked his opinion about the current plan by WotC to 'deauthorize' the current OGL in favour of a new one.

He responded as follows:

Yeah my public opinion is that Hasbro does not have the power to deauthorize a version of the OGL. If that had been a power that we wanted to reserve for Hasbro, we would have enumerated it in the license. I am on record numerous places in email and blogs and interviews saying that the license could never be revoked.

Ryan also maintains the Open Gaming Foundation.

As has been noted previously, even WotC in its own OGL FAQ did not believe at the time that the licence could be revoked.

7. Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?

Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.

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[Alzrius]

This is as good a thread as any to ask this question:

What, if anything, does it mean that the OGL itself is copyright Wizards of the Coast? Does that impact this debate or legal situation in any way?

Lay speculation here, but I'm not sure that has an impact. Copyright, as I understand it, is all about having the right to copy something, as the name states. Any idea that someone might be violating WotC's copyright by reprinting the OGL in OGL-compliant products seems undercut by the fact that the license explicitly states that you have to reprint it in order to be compliant with it.

Beyond that, I'm not sure there's a copyright aspect to the current situation.

 

[payn]

I’m in the camp that thinks while it is a net loss for the community because content is stifled. As I said, I love Pathfinder.

However I totally understand where WOC is coming from and why they want to do it. There is an argument that there are a large number of people happily producing 3pp content through DMGuild on much worse terms and I do think that 5e has resulted in a vastly bigger market for 3pp (evidenced by the fact that every IP has a 5e variant.)

The bigger companies should probably negotiate a deal that lies somewhere between ‘Completely free’ and ‘25% of revenue’ and consider it the cost of business.

The consumers pays more, ugh.

 

[Charlaquin]

Reading all the debates about the legal standing of the OGL 1.0 versus the OGL 1.1 is just giving common folk mental trauma. Sorry for the all questions below, but the hobby is in chaos in 2023 now.

For simplicity, what effect will the OGL 1.1 have on projects like EN Publishing's Level Up 5e?

In simple terms is Level Up 5e dead in the water come 2024?

Or will Level Up 5e exist as an alternative set of variant rules like Paizo's Pathfinder did in the 4e era?

Impossible to say before we have the full wording of the OGL 1.1. What we can say is that, if WotC revokes the OGL 1.0, Level Up could not exist as an alternative ruleset under it. Nor, for that matter, could Pathfinder, since that was and still is published under the OGL 1.0. In fact, a ton of RPGs are - most anything that uses the d20+mods vs target number core mechanic is probably OGL.

Would that mean these games would be “dead in the water?” Not necessarily. It would just mean they would have to operate under the terms of the new 1.1 license, or negotiate their own individual licenses with WotC. However, the 1.1 license’s terms are looking like they’ll be much more strict, which will make it less appealing to 3rd party publishers. Moreover, the fact that WotC could just revoke the old license and force publishers to adopt a new one at any time would make any license unappealing.

I think the most likely outcome would be that a few of the bigger publishers negotiate their own licenses with WotC, a few cut ties and develop new editions of their games that remove anything remotely D&D-like, and all the smaller publishers just go out of business.

Those of us who already have these books are fine, but how do we bring in new Players if those people cannot purchase the Level Up 5e core rulebook in 2024?

Presumably the same way any out of print RPGs get new players - word of mouth, and sharing of existing resources.

Will Wizards of the Coast issue cease and desist to all publishers who refuse to update to OGL 1.1?

Quite possibly.

I am thinking of selling mine, if there is no guarantee that variant rules will remain legal in 2024.

I think it’s a bit soon to jump to such measures. At least wait until WotC releases the full wording of the new license and we can know for sure if the sky is actually falling.

 

[FoolishFrost]

Okay, the legal issue is that the legal issue is not absolute. This means it can be litigated. This means that if you're a small house with standard RPG company income, Hasbro can simply litigate you into the ground.

It's sadly not about right and wrong, legal or illegal. It's about money and time. Hasbro has enough to take on just about everyone else.

But that's not the point: Hasbro and Wotc are not going to attack by shutting down other publishers. They are going to try to control them in such a way as to leverage them into supporting the main product line. They want a Steam cut of the profits.

 

[Kinematics]

This is as good a thread as any to ask this question:

What, if anything, does it mean that the OGL itself is copyright Wizards of the Coast? Does that impact this debate or legal situation in any way?

Largely nothing for the purposes of our discussion. The GPL, for example, is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, but the FSF has no connection to any software that uses the GPL.

Most likely the only relevance is that only WotC has the right to edit the content of the document, so someone else can't write a variant while claiming that their version is the real version of the OGL.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Okay, the legal issue is that the legal issue is not absolute. This means it can be litigated. This means that if you're a small house with standard RPG company income, Hasbro can simply litigate you into the ground.

It's sadly not about right and wrong, legal or illegal. It's about money and time. Hasbro has enough to take on just about everyone else.

But that's not the point: Hasbro and Wotc are not going to attack by shutting down other publishers. They are going to try to control them in such a way as to leverage them into supporting the main product line. They want a Steam cut of the profits.

the thing is the way the CAN (not saying should or even will) get the smaller fish to stay in line is by makeing sure none of the big fish break away... the WORST thing would be a lawsuit WotC/Hasbro wins... or a C&D ignored and an Injunction (I think thats the right word) filed and being upheld alone BEFORE trial could cripple a small 3pp.

 

[Kinematics]

Also, I must add another complaint: the new OGL should not be versioned 1.1. A minor version increase (1.0 to 1.1) indicates adding functionality that is backwards compatible with the previous version. WotC's 1.1 is clearly a breaking change, and thus should have been numbered as 2.0, a major version change.

This aside from the fact that it's not an open license, and in fact not even in the same category of license as the original OGL, since 1.1 ties the license specifically to WotC, rather than being a general content license that anyone could use for any system from any company.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Also, I must add another complaint: the new OGL should not be versioned 1.1. A minor version increase (1.0 to 1.1) indicates adding functionality that is backwards compatible with the previous version. WotC's 1.1 is clearly a breaking change, and thus should have been numbered as 2.0, a major version change.

This aside from the fact that it's not an open license, and in fact not even in the same category of license as the original OGL, since 1.1 ties the license specifically to WotC, rather than being a general content license that anyone could use for any system from any company.

I wonder about that numbering too... I think OGL is kept more for PR then anything, but 1.1 compared to 2.0 is an interesting point.

 

[J.Quondam]

Regardless of their attempt to destroy the OGL 1.0a (which is what most of the furor now is about), the "O"GL 1.1 as we knew about it before was in no way an open license, despite the very deceptive name. (Indeed, I was already very grouchy about it because of the blatant attempt to claim openness that they didn't have, and because it would muddy the waters under openness.)

Any license that (a) requires you to send financials, and, eventually, royalties to a specific company, and (b) can be revoked at any time by that company, is in no way open, and anybody who pays attention to what they're doing will not bet anything they care about being able to keep selling on that license.

The license might allow a blossoming of D&D-derivative content within the strictly controlled walled garden of WotC, but in no way could it create or sustain any open gaming movement. And, with their attempt now to kill the OGL 1.0a, they are explicitly trying to end any open gaming movement that exists.

This is probably the part that galls me the most. I understand Hasbro/WotC's desire to control the market and protect their IP, especially given their pivot to the increasingly popular D&D "lifestyle" over the game. I don't care for it, but it's understandable.

What I strongly dislike is that they're doing it in a way that pretends to be open. Calling this new restrictive license "OGL" is an attempt to exploit the well-regarded "Open" terminology, without adhering to the actual Open philosophy. At best, the term "OGL 1.1" is lazy, cynical marketing; at worst it's a straight up lie, imo.

 

[Alzrius]

What I strongly dislike is that they're doing it in a way that pretends to be open. Calling this new restrictive license "OGL" is an attempt to exploit the well-regarded "Open" terminology, without adhering to the actual Open philosophy. At best, the term "OGL 1.1" is lazy, cynical marketing; at worst it's a straight up lie, imo.

Exactly, which suggests to me that they thought there was some benefit to keeping that title despite chucking the spirit of the thing. I wonder what, because if it was "good press" they wildly misjudged things.