We All Won – The OGL Three Years Later

[Maxperson]

One big spot where I feel WotC really dropped the ball is with pre-5e SRD products. At one point, they committed to updating the SRDs for earlier editions into Creative Commons as well. They have since quietly gone back on that promise. The last official update was just about 2 years ago:

2024 Core Rulebooks to Expand the SRD

Today, we’re thrilled to announce the expansion of the fifth edition Systems Reference Document (SRD 5.2), which will include updated content from...

www.dndbeyond.com

IMNSHO, seeing that project through would go a long way in removing the bad taste in my mouth from the OGL debacle. But, as you rightly point out, few people are aware of this, and even fewer care. Which is why they can get away with promising it to make good PR after their major screw up, and then never follow up.

You ninja, you!

 

[DJ Shepard]

I think they achieved their goal. The OGL is barely used now.

I generally agree with you, but I do think it's positive that the OGL still exists as a license for those creative few who do use it. For instance, MT Black uses both the CC license or OGL depending on the adventure product because it allows access to the whole downstream of open game content from other publishers. He does some really cool stuff in his Iskandar Player's Guide bringing subclasses from several sources together and using OGL monsters from KP and others in his adventures.

The loss of opt-in viral open game content sharing is one factor of the OGL fracturing that I lament. I think the strongest negative of the CC-BY is the lack of incentive to contribute to a body of open content. You can use 1,600 KP Monsters, and the A5e Monstrous Menagerie ones that Morris has kindly also maintained under the OGL in the same product (and which Mike uses for the Artisanal Monster Database). I have yet to see a credible discussion of how to approach licensing for CC-BY content and OGL open content together in the same product (I.e. an adventure, rules supplement, or setting book). The only place I've seen this actually done was in Horizons magazine from Wildmage Press, which cited different licenses for each article. For those who point to the ORC license, I think it has less appeal because the license is more prescriptive on downstream creators than the OGL was (though perhaps I'm not following the products that leverage it to see it in action).

Final thought that should still be asked of WOTC: where's the 3.5 SRD in CC that was promised? That is the source of several materials that seem to only be available under it (the Otyugh for example--it's not in the 5.1 or 5.2.1 SRD).

 

[mamba]

I think they achieved their goal. The OGL is barely used now.

the goal was not for the OGL to die, but for them to get a piece of the pie from the products created under it, and supposedly to protect themselves from a bigger player like Disney using it to create their own TTRPG and dominate the market.

Neither of these goals have been accomplished, if anything the CC moved them slightly farther away from that by being more open than the OGL was. The OGL is not being used much because there is a better alternative now.

As to the ‘and so did we’, they won nothing they didn’t already have before they started the whole kerfuffle. They could have brought products onto DDB right from the start and would have been cheered for it, instead they decided to shoot themselves in the foot first

 

[mamba]

I still dislike WotC for the OGL scandal. I still haven't spent money on one of their products. (I got the 2024 books through trade - and they still managed to disappoint.)

I am in a similar boat, they never regained my ‘trust’, but I bought a few products since as I think they course-corrected fast enough. 2024 was a disappointment though and might have marked the end of my D&D journey.

I certainly am more picky about what I will buy from them in the future and have moved on from 5e. I prefer ToV and SotWW over WotC’s offering and am generally more interested in branching out farther than in staying with a D&D that keeps disappointing me

So I for one am glad that the OGL crisis got us / accelerated a lot of new TTRPGs

 

[Artamo]

I don’t know - I just feel the premise is in conflict with itself. If companies are rushing to D&DBeyond at their peril - is that not framed as bad? If most players only care about D&D and don’t care at all about the OGL or 3PP, is that not bad?

I think framing this as someone “winning” is just not sitting right with me. If anything, I don’t think anyone “won” or if there is a contest underway, it was either over before it started because of how much larger Wizards and D&D are from their nearest competitor is, or that the breadth of new games out there that are independent from Wizards are in fact, maybe not as independent as stated (again…the D&DBeyond comment that was made) or it’s still just too early to tell who has staying power.

I think we need a new product. Business talk be getting boring.

 

[mamba]

I’m confused by this point. Are people here for D&D specifically (in which case, aware or not, they are there for the brand) or are they calling it D&D in an eponymous way for any TTRPG: the way we called any photocopying to be Xeroxing.

they are here for D&D and do not care about / know about what WotC is doing with the OGL or CC, or much of anything else business related rather than product related

 

[Blue]

Who Didn't Win?

Every game ever published using the 3.x rules.

The legal stance that WotC held that they could invalidate the OGL has never been tested in court. The promise of putting the 3ed and 3.5 SRD in CC never came to pass. So there are plenty of RPGs out there, the whole original D20 movement, that are still hanging after all of the gamers have been placated by WotC's promise and stopped protesting. Yet WotC never followed through on that promise.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

Like others, I'd like to see the 3rd edition CC-BY SRD become available. Even nicer would be all previous editions, but I don't think there is any hope of that.

I do think that people moving away from the OGL to their own 3rd party license is a loss as it fractures things in ways that everyone using the OGL didn't.

I also want to applaud Morrus for releasing the A5E material under multiple licenses. That is boss!

 

[overgeeked]

Most people probably don't care. They're here for D&D and never pay attention to the brand.

I think this is the important part. People who’re very much online and pay a lot of attention to the hobby were involved and worried about the OGL debacle. But most gamers didn’t notice, and if they did notice…didn’t care.

The hobby is still overwhelmingly dominated by current edition, brand-name D&D with all other games as rounding errors of D&D’s popularity. Which is great if you like and play D&D. Less so if you’re into D&D-likes. Even less so if you want to play something else entirely.

I won’t consider the hobby to be really healthy again until D&D loses its stranglehold on the hobby.

 

[Gecko85]

The OGL fiasco succeeded in moving me primarily to PF2e, with dabbles in Daggerheart, Kids on Bikes, and Blades in the Dark.

For me, trust is hard to regain. Also, I've found that for D&D-likes, I strongly prefer PF2e to D&D 5e.