The OGL -- Just What's Going On?

D&D fandom is in uproar again about purported upcoming changes to the Open Gaming License, and rumours are flooding social media regarding WotC's intentions to 'de-authorize' the existing Open Gaming License in favour of a new one.

What's the OGL?
The Open Gaming License is a share-a-like license created by D&D owner WotC about 20 years ago so that third parties could create material compatible with the then-3E D&D game. This allowed smaller publishers to ensure the game was supported with products which WotC could not make themselves, driving sales of the core rulebooks. D&D 5E's rules are also released under that very same license, which is why you see hundreds of 5E-compatible products on Kickstarter from massive projects like the 5E-powered The One Ring, down to small adventures and supplements. It has been widely believed for two decades that this license is irrevocable (and, indeed, WotC itself believed that -- see below), but it appears that WotC is now attempting to revoke it.

A Quick Recap
A few weeks ago, WotC made a short statement regarding the OGL, followed later by a more in-depth announcement covering revised terms, royalties, and annual revenue reporting.

WotC Announces OGL 1.1 -- Revised Terms, Royalties, and Annual Revenue Reporting

There has been a lot of speculation recently about WotC's plans regarding the Open Gaming License and the upcoming One D&D. Today, WotC shared some information. In short, they will be producing a new Open Gaming License (note that the previous OGL 1.0a will still exist, and can still be used)...

www.enworld.org

At the same time, at the end of December, a number of hastily arranged meetings with 'key' third party creators under a strict NDA agreement were set up with WotC's licensing department in order to share the company's plans regarding licensing of D&D going forward (disclaimer -- while WotC also reached out to me, we were unable to schedule a meeting over the busy Christmas period, so I am not party to that information).

A New Rumour Emerges
This all came to a head yesterday when the Roll For Combat YouTube channel released what they said was a leak of the upcoming OGL from multiple trusted but anonymous sources within WotC.

We got an official leak of One D&D OGL 1.1! Watch Our Discussion And Reactions!

We received an official leak of OGL 1.1! In our weekly Roll For Combat Live YouTube show, we were talking about what we know about OGL 1.1 when we received a leak of OGL 1.1 from a reliable source. This isn't a scam, a troll, or clickbait. We go over the new OGL 1.1 and what it means to One D&D...

www.enworld.org

This leak claims the following. Note -- it is impossible to verify these claims at this time.

• There will be TWO OGL's -- an OCG: Commercial and an OGL: Non-Commercial.
• The original OGL will become unauthorized. This hinges on the wording of s9 of the current OGL:

9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.

While the license does indeed grand a 'perpetual' right to use the Open Gaming Content referenced, it appears that WotC currently believes that it can render a version of the license unauthorized. The license itself makes no reference to authorization or the lack thereof, nor does it define any methods of authorization or deauthorization, other than in that line. So this entire thing hinges on that one word, 'authorized' in the original OGL.

RollForCombat posted the following summary -- it is unclear whether this is their own paraphrasing, or that of their anonymous source, or indeed the actual document (although tonally it doesn't sound like it):

"This agreement is, along with the OGL: Non-Commercial, an update to the previously available OGL 1.0(a), which is no longer an authorized license agreement. We can modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever, provided We give thirty (30) days’ notice. We will provide notice of any such changes by posting the revisions on Our website, and by making public announcements through Our social media channels."

"You own the new and original content You create. You agree to give Us a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose."

"You waive any right to sue over Our decision on these issues. We’re aware that, if We somehow stretch Our decision of what is or is not objectionable under these clauses too far, We will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We’re more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision. But nobody gets to use the threat of a lawsuit as part of an attempt to convince Us."

The ability for WotC to use your Open Gaming Content is not new; the company could do that under the old OGL also; it has rarely exercised that right, though it did reuse a couple of third party monsters in a 3E rulebook.

iO9 Gets A Copy
However, Linda Codega over at Gizmodo/iO9 got hold of a copy of the current draft of the OGL 1.1.

• It's long. It's ten times the length of the current OGL, at 9,000 words.
• No bigots. It prohibits NFTs and bigoted content.
• Print/PDF only. It also prohibits apps and video games. And pantomimes, apparently. The wording says "including but not limited to things like videos, virtual tabletops or VTT campaigns, computer games, novels, apps, graphics novels, music, songs, dances, and pantomimes."
• Deauthorizes the previous OGL. The license states that the OGL 1.0a is "no longer an authorized license agreement".
• It’s soon! Pressingly, the draft also indicates that publishers who wish to sell SRD-based content on or after January 13th (which is just 8 days away!) have only one option: agree to the OGL: Commercial. That gives companies very little time to evaluate the license or make any necessary changes.
• Clear OGL declarations. The new license contains other restrictions which effectively prohibit companies from identifying their OGC via a separate System Reference Document (which is what games like Pathfinder do); instead the reader must be alerted to Open Gaming Content within the product itself.
• Royalties. As previously noted, creators who make over $750K will need to pay royalties to WotC. WotC does indicate that it might reach out to succesful creators for a more 'custom (and mutially beneficial) licensing arrangement). Creators are divided into three tiers - under $50K, $50K-$750K, and $750K+. The royalty is 20% or 25% of 'qualifying revenue', which is revenue in excess of $750K. The term used is revenue, not profit.
• They want you to use Kickstarter. Kickstarter -- their 'preferred' platform -- attracts the lower 20% royalty, and non-Kickstarter crowdfuders attract 25%. It's interesting that WotC even has a preferred crowdfunding platform, let alone that they are trying to influence creators to use it over its competitors like Backerkit, IndieGoGo, Gamefound, and the like.
• New logo. An identifying badge will be required on products which use the new OGL, and creators will need to send WotC a copy of their product.

The document itself comments that “the Open Game License was always intended to allow the community to help grow D&D and expand it creatively. It wasn’t intended to subsidize major competitors, especially now that PDF is by far the most common form of distribution.” That sounds like it is talking about companies such as Paizo.

Community Reaction
Social media has exploded, with a lot of very negative pushback regarding this news.

Many people have weighed in with their interpretations of s9 (above), both lawyers and non-lawyers. There seems to be little agreement in that area right now. If the above rumous is true, then WotC's current leadership clearly believes that previous iterations of the OGL can be 'de-authorized'. It's interesting to note that previous WotC administrations believed otherwise, and said as much in their own official OGL FAQ:

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.

OGL architect Ryan Dancey also appears to have felt otherwise. In an article right here on EN World he said:

I also had the goal that the release of the SRD would ensure that D&D in a format that I felt was true to its legacy could never be removed from the market by capricious decisions by its owners.

Of course, many game systems are released using that license: Pathfinder, Fate, Open d6, WOIN, and many, many more -- many of them have nothing at all to do with D&D and simply use the license as a useful tool for enabling third-party content creators; while Pathfinder is, of course, the industry's largest OGL game and published by Paizo, the industry's second largest TTRPG comapmny after WotC itself. If the original OGL were somehow to become invalid, all these games would be affected.

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...

www.enworld.org

There are other bits to the current rumour -- a 30 day notice period during which WotC can change the license any way they wish, and a waiver over the right to sue the company.

It's hard to get a clear picture of what's going on right now. I haven't seen the new OGL, and other than a handul of 'key' creators, it seems like very few have. WotC did indicate that it would be unveiled very soon.

Is it an OGL?
While it may be called "Open Gaming License v1.1", if the above is true, this isn't really an update to the OGL, it's an entirely new license. Ryan Dancey, architect of the original OGL. and who runs the Open Gaming Foundation, defines open gaming licenses as --

​

1. Game Rules and materials that use those rules that can be freely copied, modified and distributed.​

​

2. A system for ensuring that material contributed to the Open Gaming community will remain Open and cannot be made Closed once contributed.​

​

By these definitions, it appears that the new OGL is not actually an open gaming license, and has more in common with the Game System License WotC used for D&D 4th Edition.

So, What Now?
Now, we wait and see. Many eyes will be on the bigger players -- Paizo, Kobold Press, Green Ronin, etc. -- to see what action they take. As yet, none of these have commented publicly except for Green Ronin's Chris Pramas who told Gizmodo that they had not yet seen the new license, but they do not believe there is "any benefit to switching to the new one as described.” As for Paizo, Gizmodo says "Paizo Inc., publisher of the Pathfinder RPG, one of D&D’s largest competitors, declined to comment on the changes for this article, stating that the rules update was a complicated and ongoing situation."

Will these companies go along with it? Will they ignore it? Will they challenge it? We'll have to wait and see!

7 days is not enough time for even a small publisher to overhaul its entire product line to comply with new rules, let along a large one like Paizo. I have to assume there is an allowed time period to do this, otherwise it's practically impossible to do. It does seem that -- if proven enforceable -- the de-athorization of the existing OGL would drive many companies out of business, especially those which produce or lean heavily on electronic apps and the like.

It also remains to be seen how WotC goes about the task of persuading creators to use its new license -- will it tempt them with a carrot (such as access to the D&D Beyond platform), or try to force them with a stick (such as threat of legal action)? And how will the TTRPG community react, because this goes far beyond just D&D.

It sounds like we'll hear something more solid imminently.

 

[Reynard]

What existing third party content do you think WotC is wishing they published?

I have a hard time figuring out what it could be, looking at their output versus what the third party scene has produced.

I think they know there is a demand for 3PP stuff they don't want to make, hence their conversations with the well established companies. I don't think WotC going back to 32 page adventures was ever a possibility, let alone well supported settings or lines of splat books.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think they know there is a demand for 3PP stuff they don't want to make, hence their conversations with the well established companies. I don't think WotC going back to 32 page adventures was ever a possibility, let alone well supported settings or lines of splat books.

Kobold Press is imminently going to publish a second book of spells and magic-user subclasses. That's something that WotC has published in the past, apparently to great commercial success, but seems to have no interest in doing this time around.

People keep saying WotC is coming for their content (especially on YouTube), but I cannot figure out what they'd really be taking. (I mean, if I was them, I'd have things I'd want them to be doing, but I have a feeling they'd want to create their own versions anyway, since they'd want to do it their way.)

 

[JDragon]

What existing third party content do you think WotC is wishing they published?

I have a hard time figuring out what it could be, looking at their output versus what the third party scene has produced.

That is a fair question, and one that I don't have an answer to it was more of a thought that occurred to me as I was responding. In part because I do PF1 and 99.9% of the time only use material from Paizo, so as a result I don't look at 3PP material very often.
If nothing else that clause seems just another indicator they want total control of D&D and all the money.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That is a fair question, and one that I don't have an answer to it was more of a thought that occurred to me as I was responding. In part because I do PF1 and 99.9% of the time only use material from Paizo, so as a result I don't look at 3PP material very often.

I think Paizo and Kobold Press would, in theory, be the places they'd steal from first, but don't show any inclination to.

If nothing else that clause seems just another indicator they want total control of D&D and all the money.

No. It's about not getting sued about parallel development, including the bonus provision so they don't have to pay damages even if a judge rules against them. Look at the Blurred Lines lawsuit in the music industry to see a case where the judge made a very controversial decision and freaked out lawyers and the entertainment industry more broadly.

WotC is by no means the only company with a similar stance on this stuff. Submit a script to a major comic book company and you have to sign away your rights to ownership in order to have them look at it, because they might one day publish a story about Aunt May going on dating apps and matching up with a supervillain, like you had in your spec script.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What existing third party content do you think WotC is wishing they published?

I can't speak to individual bits of 3PP, but the tone of the comments and design of the OGL 1.1 to strongly suggests that they are actively frustrated that they might be seen as "copycats" or even sued if they published certain content. That they feel like 3PPs maybe "got in there first".

Which is dumbest bloody self-regarding idiot sentiment possible, on their part, to be clear.

Because they're the ones who decided to slow-walk 5E.

They're the ones who decided to go with a minimal rather than maximal publishing schedule.

Like, if I throw a brick through my window, I don't get to complain that it's cold!

But that seems like what's going on here. They're mad because a lot of the "blanks" 5E left due to the slow-walk publishing schedule have now been filled in by 3PPs. Realistically 3PPs will reach like, 10% of the audience a WotC version of the same would reach. But WotC is mad nonetheless. They also might feel their marketing strategies are being "messed with" by 3PPs putting stuff out - largely accidentally, but still.

And I think another thing they're mad about is how high-quality 3PPs often are now. That wasn't true in 3E so much. Even Paizo were not really at WotC levels of quality, in terms of editing, writing, art, layout, tone control and so on. Whereas now? 3PPs often surpass 5E in those regards. Not most of them, but certainly some of them.

Griffon's Saddle for example I think they're steaming mad with because an item/magic item splatbook is absolutely low-hanging fruit for WotC. But because they were slow-walking, they chose not to do it. Now they have the eye of Sauron upon them (Hasbro), and they're asked to massively increase profits, low-hanging-fruit stuff they were fine with 3PPs publishing 2 years ago is absolutely stuff they want control of. And they also want to be sure that if they do Hippogriff's Saddlebags, they'll have even more legal armour than the OGC approach gave them.

To be clear, it is in part about protecting them. That's a major part. But the reason that matters so much now is they're going to try and go into the spaces previously filled by 3PPs, so it's a bigger risk for them, and they want to kill or control any larger 3PPs to prevent them continuing to fill the gaps WotC leaves.

 

[overgeeked]

PURE SPECULATION: The real reason that OGL 1.1 hasn't dropped has absolutely nothing to do with the leak but everything to do with all of the big 3pp saying no to the sweetheart contracts and now WotC is unsure how to proceed.

I'm sure if all of the big 3pp bond together in a class action lawsuit, then crowdsource the funding, WotC/Hasbro would ave to reconsider their position as the revoking of OGL 1.0a would definitely get a hearing in a court, and a class action lawsuit with so many people/entities in the class would likely be able to file a restraining order to suppress implementation of the OGL 1.1 and win until a ruling is made due to irreparable harm suffered by plaintiffs.

This assumes most of the big 3PP said no. We haven't heard from (m)any big 3PP about this. AFAIK only MCDM has spoken about it directly and their statement was "this will not affect the release of Flee, Mortals". Paizo hasn't said anything. Morrus apparently couldn't schedule a meeting. Critical Role hasn't said anything but Matt Mercer liked a tweet. What about Kobold or Goodman or any of the others? Crickets. Likely under NDA until the official 1.1 text drops, but still.

 

[Remathilis]

I can't speak to individual bits of 3PP, but the tone of the comments and design of the OGL 1.1 to strongly suggests that they are actively frustrated that they might be seen as "copycats" or even sued if they published certain content. That they feel like 3PPs maybe "got in there first".

Which is dumbest bloody self-regarding idiot sentiment possible, on their part, to be clear.

Because they're the ones who decided to slow-walk 5E.

They're the ones who decided to go with a minimal rather than maximal publishing schedule.

Like, if I throw a brick through my window, I don't get to complain that it's cold!

But that seems like what's going on here. They're mad because a lot of the "blanks" 5E left due to the slow-walk publishing schedule have now been filled in by 3PPs. Realistically 3PPs will reach like, 10% of the audience a WotC version of the same would reach. But WotC is mad nonetheless. They also might feel their marketing strategies are being "messed with" by 3PPs putting stuff out - largely accidentally, but still.

And I think another thing they're mad about is how high-quality 3PPs often are now. That wasn't true in 3E so much. Even Paizo were not really at WotC levels of quality, in terms of editing, writing, art, layout, tone control and so on. Whereas now? 3PPs often surpass 5E in those regards. Not most of them, but certainly some of them.

Griffon's Saddle for example I think they're steaming mad with because an item/magic item splatbook is absolutely low-hanging fruit for WotC. But because they were slow-walking, they chose not to do it. Now they have the eye of Sauron upon them (Hasbro), and they're asked to massively increase profits, low-hanging-fruit stuff they were fine with 3PPs publishing 2 years ago is absolutely stuff they want control of. And they also want to be sure that if they do Hippogriff's Saddlebags, they'll have even more legal armour than the OGC approach gave them.

To be clear, it is in part about protecting them. That's a major part. But the reason that matters so much now is they're going to try and go into the spaces previously filled by 3PPs, so it's a bigger risk for them, and they want to kill or control any larger 3PPs to prevent them continuing to fill the gaps WotC leaves.

The obvious answer then would have been to go back to splat of the month design like much of 3e and 4e. A hardcover a month. They clearly had no problem with that model in Magic.

I don't think the problem is that they made a magic item book before WotC did, it's that they made a D&D-adjacent book and aren't getting any profit for it.

 

[Staffan]

WotC is by no means the only company with a similar stance on this stuff. Submit a script to a major comic book company and you have to sign away your rights to ownership in order to have them look at it, because they might one day publish a story about Aunt May going on dating apps and matching up with a supervillain, like you had in your spec script.

 

[Yaarel]

I was involved in a Discord server where the goal was to make a new best version of Shadowrun ever because people weren't happy with what Catalyst did for 5th and 6th edition and it devolved into competing ideas, some forking of the project and a whole lot of reviewing and voting and the project never went anywhere. Without some person or people having ultimate control of the overall project it is a mess.

This is why I feel a wiki platform can help for the Open Gaming Content.

It becomes possible to dedicate separate pages for each "module" or "variant".

Meanwhile, other pages can link to various pages to organize the structure of a particular gaming style.

For example.

At the gaming engine system level, there might be a debate about whether to use Eight Abilities, Six Abilities, Four Abilities, or No Abilities. The choices with enough supporters can branch off, to create content for each system.

Meanwhile the systems can freely borrow from each other. For example, a Monster given freely to Open Content (as opposed to Property Identity Content), and depicted and narrated for one system, can easily add a variant with mechanics for an other system.

The challenge is to organize the Content clearly, simply, and esthetically. But it will be good enough. Businesses will use the wiki as resource for professionally crafted Gaming Products.

 

[Cadence]

The obvious answer then would have been to go back to splat of the month design like much of 3e and 4e. A hardcover a month. They clearly had no problem with that model in Magic.

I don't think the problem is that they made a magic item book before WotC did, it's that they made a D&D-adjacent book and aren't getting any profit for it.

I wonder what the reaction would have been if WotC had done an annual "Best of 3PP" where they edited slect OGC things from other books that year into one official source book... and maybe even gave a small % of the development cost back to the original creators.