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.

​

 

[Henry]

If there was ONE controversy that could drag me out of mothballs too,

THIS IS IT.
Very glad to see Ryan around the forum!

 

[Alzrius]

Hasn't it been firmly established that game mechanics can not be copyrighted and are thus fair game? So as long as I am not publishing Elminster Goes To Waterdeep, how does this really affect me?

To quote something I wrote in another thread:

The issue is one of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Basically, what is and isn't legally actionable with regard to using "non-copyrightable" game mechanics has the potential to be a very murky area, and just because you think you're in the clear doesn't mean that someone else will think that...or that a judge will think that. The Open Game License is basically a way to say "here's an explicit outline of what you can and cannot do if you want to use our stuff, and so long as you stick to this we won't take legal action against you."

 

[Reynard]

Hasn't it been firmly established that game mechanics can not be copyrighted and are thus fair game? So as long as I am not publishing Elminster Goes To Waterdeep, how does this really affect me?

As has been stated, RPG game mechanics really haven't been tested this way. "Game mechanics can't be copyrighted" was tested for things like "roll a die and move that many spaces." "Characters are defiend by these specific 6 stats with these specific impacts" has not been tested. Yet. Maybe soon.

 

[Ondath]

Hasn't it been firmly established that game mechanics can not be copyrighted and are thus fair game? So as long as I am not publishing Elminster Goes To Waterdeep, how does this really affect me?

This point was made several thousand times in the discussions at this point (but then again the discussion is moving at breakneck speed in 5 separate threads), so here's a quick article by senior designer Justin Alexander on why you might want to prefer the safe harbor of OGL (v1.0a) over game mechanics being non-copyrightable: Do I Need to Use the Open Gaming License?

 

[Reynard]

If there was ONE controversy that could drag me out of mothballs too,

THIS IS IT.
Very glad to see Ryan around the forum!

kenobi-name-longtime.gif

 

[Henry]

Hasn't it been firmly established that game mechanics can not be copyrighted and are thus fair game? So as long as I am not publishing Elminster Goes To Waterdeep, how does this really affect me?

Mainly because there’s not much legal precedent in the tabletop RPG space for “mechanics cannot be copyrighted” that’s in fact what the whole OGL safe harbor is based on - Neither the publisher nor the third-party publishers having to stand this up in court to a lot of court costs. Although depending on how nasty things get, It might happen anyway

 

[Charlaquin]

Hasn't it been firmly established that game mechanics can not be copyrighted and are thus fair game? So as long as I am not publishing Elminster Goes To Waterdeep, how does this really affect me?

The problem is that the line between game mechanics (which can’t be copyrighted) and the presentation thereof (which can be) is very blurry when it comes to RPGs, and there’s basically no legal precedent to fall back on. So, if you want to risk having to fight WotC’s lawyers over whether dwarves being able to see in the dark is a game mechanic, you’re welcome to, but most publishers don’t want to go there.

 

[Morrus]

The problem is that the line between game mechanics (which can’t be copyrighted) and the presentation thereof (which can be) is very blurry when it comes to RPGs, and there’s basically no legal precedent to fall back on. So, if you want to risk having to fight WotC’s lawyers over whether dwarves being able to see in the dark is a game mechanic, you’re welcome to, but most publishers don’t want to go there.

Yeah. Game mechanics aren't actually defined. That rule comes from things like 'roll a die and move that many squares'. It's never been tested on anything more complex.

 

[jgbrowning]

If there was ONE controversy that could drag me out of mothballs too,

THIS IS IT.
Very glad to see Ryan around the forum!

I too have been dragged out of mothballs over this. Heya, Henry!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

While this isn't a computer company, from what I understand the way the OGL was worded was based heavily on the open source licenses of the time.

of the time is the important part... in the lawyer thread and else where I have been told (and no I didn't read them or feel that if I did read them it would help) that the language has changed as of V3 on 2007 to close this. So YES in 2000 it was based on something, that has since been fixed but WotC never changed/fixed the hole.

So if WotC says that their open license on tabletop games can be declared unauthorised and replaced with a walled garden, the same could apply for open source software licenses.

except all it takes is changing the wording, so not as big a deal especially if the default licence is multi version into fixing the issue.

Given that an unimaginable amount of technological infrastructure rests on open source software in one way or another, I think there would be a lot of people who wouldn't ignore the problem and want to oppose WotC's interpretation of how open licenses work.

again that is if and only if you can show that something taken and changed for a game fits something that has been updated multi times for software.