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

[Stonesnake]

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 and the future of D&D (it's not great...).

Check it out now!

 

[Alzrius]

Calling on @darjr to watch and give us a breakdown, pretty please.

 

[Cadence]

Edit: Jump to We got an official leak of One D&D OGL 1.1! Watch Our Discussion And Reactions! for a link to a Gizmodo article backing them up.
------


Here's what they (apparently) posted on Reddit. Haphazardly time-skipping through the video showed me no reason to give them clicks. (Please correct if I missed something - like, by giving a timestamp to go to).

 

[Nikosandros]

Am I to believe that the above text was written by WotC? With that informal tone? Color me extremely skeptical.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Clearly fake clickbait, and not an actual leak. So many red flags there, including and not limited to bad grammar and complete lack of legal understanding of how the current OGL works.

At the time of me seeing this thread (20 min after it was posted) the video is already down.

Edit video appears to be back up, but clearly their "source" isn't an actual source for reasons above.

 

[Alzrius]

At the time of me seeing this thread (20 min after it was posted) the video is already down.

It's still up for me; I'm literally watching it as I type this, and copy-pasting its URL pulls it up on Youtube just fine.

 

[Nikosandros]

Yes, it also still up for me as well.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Seriously?

Is this a bad attempt at trolling, or did people actually look at this and think, "Yep, that totes look like a legit license agreement."

 

[Nikosandros]

Seriously?

Is this a bad attempt at trolling, or did people actually look at this and think, "Yep, that totes look like a legit license agreement."

It is so egregious that it does seem like trolling.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Yeah this is Bull.

 

[payn]

My link just says drink more Ovaltine.

 

[Ondath]

The third line looks like absolutely nonsense, but some people vouched for the duo on the Pathfinder subreddit saying one of them was a PF2 designer and that they know people in WotC.

Perhaps they're paraphrasing the intent behind what was leaked to them in an extremely informal tone? The conditions seem extremely limited, but @pemerton was saying that theoretically WotC could stop offering OGL v1.0a, so perhaps the leaks could have some truth behind them?

If this is the case, though, it's going to burn a lot of bridges. I can't imagine the OSR community (or even Evil Hat Productions, who use a modified version of OGL v1.0a for their SRD) being too happy about suddenly losing the right to publish new content. I feel like this would be one bridge burnt too far.

 

[JThursby]

I would find it extremely strange for two industry veterans to burn their reputation on clickbait, so I doubt they're trolling for views. For whatever reason, they're putting a lot of faith in their source. Time will tell if that faith is warranted or not. The claims are...exceptional, to put it lightly.

Would it be too much to ask Morrus to chime in? EN Publishing has worked with these guys before, and might have some insight on the potential validity of the claims.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I know that no one on YouTube seems to understand this, but if it's "official," it's not a "leak." And if it's a "leak," it's not "official."

 

[mamba]

The third line looks like absolutely nonsense

the whole excerpt does

Perhaps they're paraphrasing the intent behind what was leaked to them in an extremely informal tone? The conditions seem extremely limited, but @pemerton was saying that theoretically WotC could stop offering OGL v1.0a, so perhaps the leaks could have some truth behind them?

they can stop making the SRD available for download, but that does not mean anything since you can still find it in plenty of places.
The license cannot be revoked.

 

[Ondath]

they can stop making the SRD available for download, but that does not mean anything since you can still find it in plenty of places.
The license cannot be revoked.

What I understood from pemerton's inference in the other thread was that while OGL v1.0a is irrevocable for those who took up the offer so far (i.e., people who published content using it), since the OGL is essentially a contract WotC can stop making the offer for OGL v1.0a for any future licensees. If this is true (though IANAL so my understanding is potentially very wrong), upon forcefully updating the OGL to v1.1, the only people who could use v1.0a would be those who already published content with it. So Necrotic Gnome and other existing OSR publishers could keep using it for their own game, but a new publishing company could not publish a new OSR title using OGL v1.0a.

 

[Nikosandros]

If WotC were to stop offering the OGL, you could just enter into the licensing agreement through some other publisher that had previously done so.

 

[Ondath]

If WotC were to stop offering the OGL, you could just enter into the licensing agreement through some other publisher that had previously done so.

Does this mean I'd have to, say, get them to publish my OGL v1.0a work, or can I just create derivative content of their work and use their OGL license to publish it myself? Say, Pathfinder 2E has Bulk Inventory rules that are different from the weight-based rules in SRD 5.1, and the Bulk Inventory rules are a part of Paizo's Open Gaming Content. Could I publish my own modified Bulk rules using OGL v1.0a just by slapping Paizo's OGL license notice, or do I have to go through them now that (so it is claimed) WotC will stop offering OGL v1.0a?

What I'm trying to understand is if WotC can ever legally put the genie back in the bottle regarding the use of D&D's core rules for developing your own game systems (which is how we got Pathfinder and all retroclones and Nu-OSR games, which is an ecosystem I'd like to see thrive).

 

[mamba]

Am I to believe that the above text was written by WotC? With that informal tone? Color me extremely skeptical.

Could also be a summary of the changes, certainly does not read like a legal license agreement would.
Right now I do not trust this at all, but if it were true, we are basically back in GSL 2.0 territory, forget about the misleading name.

 

[Alzrius]

The third line looks like absolutely nonsense, but some people vouched for the duo on the Pathfinder subreddit saying one of them was a PF2 designer and that they know people in WotC.

I was going to bring that up here, too. Mark Seifter worked at Paizo since 2014 until about a year ago when he left for Roll for Combat's Battlezoo line. So I'm having a hard time believing that he'd injure his own professional reputation by putting out fake news for clicks.