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

[Ondath]

It would be wise for WotC to get way ahead of this. I just can't wrap my brain around it right now lol.

Same. If the OGL v1.1 gets updated with something that amounts to what's leaked here, a large (and I mean LARGE) portion of the TTRPG industry will be changed irrevocably. Everything from all OSR games to Level Up to Pathfinder to FATE's SRD (though not the books themselves, I checked) use OGL v1.0a. If they invalidate it with a stroke of pen, they'll be alienating a a lot of publishers. The case would probably go to court, and the animosity this would create between WotC, the biggest fish, and the rest of the entire freakin' ocean could hurt the industry massively.

 

[overgeeked]

OK they have two different sources.

Wow. That’s not quite unbelievable. But I really hope it’s BS.

Here’s to hoping the big 3PP rally together, write legally distinct (but close enough) rules, and publish them under their own open version of the OGL.

 

[Alzrius]

What is their claim? That the quoted text is a paraphrase or is it actually from the license? Because I can't believe the latter.

I can't either. My guess (and this is just a guess) is that their source(s) are copying-and-pasting some sort of informal communique from (someone at) WotC.

 

[Nikosandros]

Same. If the OGL v1.1 gets updated with something that amounts to what's leaked here, a large (and I mean LARGE) portion of the TTRPG industry will be changed irrevocably. Everything from all OSR games to Level Up to Pathfinder to FATE's SRD (though not the books themselves, I checked) use OGL v1.0a. If they invalidate it with a stroke of pen, they'll be alienating a a lot of publishers. The case would probably go to court, and the animosity this would create between WotC, the biggest fish, and the rest of the entire freakin' ocean could hurt the industry massively.

I mean if they change the license to something closed going forwards, it will be disappointing; but if they were to really try and nuke all previous material the backlash would be huge. It would be so extreme that I will have to read it in an official document from WotC to believe it.

 

[Malmuria]

If WotC paid real lawyers real money to write this thing they need to fire those lawyers immediately and hire new ones.

Seriously. It's NuTSR-level writing.

...wait a second...

 

[Minigiant]

Personally,I think there are just too many disingenuous fans of other RPGs, online content creators, and fledgling third party publishers out there wishing for a weakening of WOTC or even collapse of 1DND that I, Minigiant, would not trust even a source of a leak or a leak itself right now.

There are too many people building franchises of Pitchfork Emporium that I would see anything that comes before the actual publishing of the OGL 1.1 as tainted.

WOTC and Hasbro went througn license issues less than 2 decades ago. And both have money for big lawyers. I know Big Corp can be stupid but it isn't that stupid.

 

[mamba]

I mean if they change the license to something closed going forwards, it will be disappointing; but if they were to really try and nuke all previous material the backlash would be huge. It would be so extreme that I will have to read it in an official document from WotC to believe it.

I don't think this means nuking all previous material, as the license is permanent. It would however mean that nothing new can be published under 1.0a

 

[Ondath]

I mean if they change the license to something closed going forwards, it will be disappointing; but if they were to really try and nuke all previous material the backlash would be huge. It would be so extreme that I will have to read it in an official document from WotC to believe it.

I mean, if it becomes closed going forwards, doesn't that amount to the same thing? If Paizo/EN Publishing/MCDM/OSR publishers would need to send WotC their revenue data to publish new PF2E/Level Up/K&W/OSR sourcebooks (because their license retroactively became OGL v1.1 when the old one became "unauthorised"), that's pretty much bringing the entire 3rd-party TTRPG industry to their vassalage.

 

[Nikosandros]

I mean, if it becomes closed going forwards, doesn't that amount to the same thing? If Paizo/EN Publishing/MCDM/OSR publishers would need to send WotC their revenue data to publish new PF2E sourcebooks (because their license retroactively became OGL v1.1 when the old one became "unauthorised"), that's pretty much bringing the entire 3rd-party TTRPG industry to their vassalage.

It is very different if it is simply closed for the new material. In that case, Pathfinder, OSR, Level Up, etc. would not be affected. They would just keep using the old OGL.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

What is their claim? That the quoted text is a paraphrase or is it actually from the license? Because I can't believe the latter.

Briefly (given the FUD already spreading)-

The quoted bit is nonsensical. It doesn't even come close to resembling real legal-ese. It is not from any possible leaked license.

Is it possible that it's some mangled version of a license that someone misunderstood and then got translated via a bad game of telephone through various sources? Sure. Is it possible that someone saw something that people might need to be concerned about? Possibly. But the devil in contacts is, quite literally, in the details. Without access to the real document, you can't make any real determinations. And whatever we are being shown ain't it.

Now, moving briefly to @Ondath and the concerns raised-

1. You cannot retroactively cancel the OGL 1.0 and the works created from it. Life doesn't work like that.

2. Is it possible that Hasbro could "revoke" (stop offering for acceptance) the prior OGL, and could this affect new works? Sure, that might be possible. But really answering that would require me to think about stuff. And I'm not here to think. I'm here to chew bubblegum and mock bards, and I'm all out of bubblegum.