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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[eyeheartawk]

... can't we get back to something less contentious like, I don't know, edition wars?

I'm a edition war Anarchist.

I choose chess.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

Folks, this thread is not titled "The Nature of Capitalism". So how about that line of discussion dies, and you get back on topic, please? Thanks.

 

[Greg Benage]

Pure evil.

OOPS: Ninja'd by moderation. Sorry!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Redacted due to red text

 

[Ondath]

Any chance the upcoming WotC announcement might actually spill the beans on whether OGL v1.0a will actually be deauthorised or not?

I'm not betting on it, but I do get the feeling that they felt like they had to say something after Kobold Press raised the black flag (in multiple senses of the word), so hopefully some emergency course correction is happening within the firm.

 

[Maxperson]

Edited: didn't see mod note.

 

[Maxperson]

... can't we get back to something less contentious like, I don't know, edition wars?

Fair enough. I'll stop now.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Any chance the upcoming WotC announcement might actually spill the beans on whether OGL v1.0a will actually be deauthorised or not?

I think it has to.

If it doesn't spell that out, almost everyone, including some people who previously thought it was opt-in, not general deauthorization, will think it's general deauthorization. There's no earthly reason not to spell that out given it's clearly the focus of the most intense anger.

Really you kind of have to think that, too, because the only other possibility is such profound ineptitude that it literally defies belief.

 

[RyanD]

Out of just curiosity, do you remember what the feel was they gave off at the time? Were people skeptical of this (very different for 2000) idea? Were they all immediately excited, or were any apprehensive?

Part of the challenge was convincing publishers this was not a “trap”. Many people saw a conspiracy to kill all the competition and steal their ideas. It took courage on the part of some high profile publishers to take the risk and lead the way - Green Ronin, Atlas, and White Wolf with Necromancer among others.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Part of the challenge was convincing publishers this was not a “trap”. Many people saw a conspiracy to kill all the competition and steal their ideas. Ot took courage on the part of some high profile publishers to take the risk and lead the way - Green Ronin, Atlas, and White Wolf with Necromancer among others.

I remember the discussions around this!

I even remember on WW fansite (or possibly the main WW forums), there being accusations that WW were "traitors" for engaging with WotC's licence. It wasn't a majority opinion, but it was a common one. Of course Scarred Lands was so good a lot of people changed their minds and acted like they'd never said it later.