WotC Backs Down: Original OGL To Be Left Untouched; Whole 5E Rules Released as Creative Commons

Hundreds of game publishers sigh in relief as, after extensive pressure exerted by the entire open gaming community, WotC has agreed to leave the original Open Gaming License untouched and put the whole of the 5E rules into Creative Commons.

So, what's happened?

• The Open Gaming Licence v1.0a which most of the D&D third party industry relies on, will be left untouched for now.
• The whole of the D&D 5E SRD (ie the rules of the game less the fluff text) has been released under a Creative Commons license.

OGL 1.0a & Creative Commons

Over the past few weeks you, the community, have made your voices heard. And we’ve listened. OGL 1.0a will remain untouched AND the entire SRD 5.1...

www.dndbeyond.com

WotC has a history of 'disappearing' inconvenient FAQs and stuff, such as those where they themselves state that the OGL is irrevocable, so I'll copy this here for posterity.

When you give us playtest feedback, we take it seriously.

Already more than 15,000 of you have filled out the survey. Here's what you said:

• 88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2.
• 90% would have to change some aspect of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.
• 89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
• 86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy.
• 62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons.

These live survey results are clear. You want OGL 1.0a. You want irrevocability. You like Creative Commons.
The feedback is in such high volume and its direction is so plain that we're acting now.

1. We are leaving OGL 1.0a in place, as is. Untouched.
2. We are also making the entire SRD 5.1 available under a Creative Commons license.
3. You choose which you prefer to use.

This Creative Commons license makes the content freely available for any use. We don't control that license and cannot alter or revoke it. It's open and irrevocable in a way that doesn't require you to take our word for it. And its openness means there's no need for a VTT policy. Placing the SRD under a Creative Commons license is a one-way door. There's no going back.

Our goal here is to deliver on what you wanted.

So, what about the goals that drove us when we started this process?

We wanted to protect the D&D play experience into the future. We still want to do that with your help. We're grateful that this community is passionate and active because we'll need your help protecting the game's inclusive and welcoming nature.

We wanted to limit the OGL to TTRPGs. With this new approach, we are setting that aside and counting on your choices to define the future of play.
Here's a PDF of SRD 5.1 with the Creative Commons license. By simply publishing it, we place it under an irrevocable Creative Commons license. We'll get it hosted in a more convenient place next week. It was important that we take this step now, so there's no question.

• SRD 5.1-CC

We'll be closing the OGL 1.2 survey now.

We'll keep talking with you about how we can better support our players and creators. Thanks as always for continuing to share your thoughts.

Kyle Brink
Executive Producer, Dungeons & Dragons

What does this mean?

The original OGL sounds safe for now, but WotC has not admitted that they cannot revoke it. That's less of an issue now the 5E System Reference Document is now released to Creative Commons (although those using the 3E SRD or any third party SRDs still have issues as WotC still hasn't revoked the incorrect claim that they can revoke access to those at-will).

At this point, if WotC wants anybody to use whatever their new OGL v1.x turns out to be, there needs to be one heck of a carrot. What that might be remains to be seen.

Pathfinder publlsher Paizo has also commented on the latest developments.

We welcome today’s news from Wizards of the Coast regarding their intention not to de-authorize OGL 1.0a. We still believe there is a powerful need for an irrevocable, perpetual independent system-neutral open license that will serve the tabletop community via nonprofit stewardship. Work on the ORC license will continue, with an expected first draft to release for comment to participating publishers in February.

Over 1,500 Publishers Support Paizo's Upcoming Open RPG Creator's License

Paizo has revealed some of the 1,500+ tabletop RPG publishers who have expressed an interest in their new Open RPG Creator's License (ORC), describing the group as the 'ORC Alliance'. The license itself is still being worked on, so these 1,500 publishers have not actually seen it or signed...

www.enworld.org

 

[SoonRaccoon]

The cakes were lies? I don't thnk I can ever trust der waffel haus again. Next you'll be telling me that the eggs don' even come from chickens!

We cannot let them deauthorize pancakes!

 

[Bedrockgames]

What for?

Seriously -- what would be the point of trying this again, with the 5E SRD released under Creative Commons? We don't know for sure what their goal was this time, but there are several possibilities: They were trying to kneecap competition for their VTT, or they were trying to prevent another Pathfinder from happening down the road, or they were trying to get more control over the brand, or it was just a money grab.

I guess my question is why then, if there is no point in trying again, can't they state that the OGL 1A is irrevocable? That was the original point of contention. I need to review the whole SRD 5.1-CC to fully absorb what they are saying and what possible angles could be happening here. If they really mean what they say here, why can't they just also throw in a statement to the effect that the original OGL 1A is irrevocable and cannot be deauthorized?

None of those are possible any more. The CC license is out of WotC's hands -- there is nothing they can ever do to recall the 5E SRD now. The only people still exposed are users of the 3E and 3.5E SRDs, and they have nothing that would remotely justify the backlash.

As for this being "slimy"... I think a lot of people are making the mistake of thinking of "Wizards of the Coast" as a person who makes plans and does things. While it's often a convenient shorthand to talk about corporations that way (I did it myself above), you have to remember that it is a shorthand. Corporations do not plan or think or feel or act. They're just legal and accounting fictions, labels for organizing our stuff.

The decision to try to kill the OGL was made by a person. The decision to abandon the attempt and put the SRD into Creative Commons was also made by a person. They were almost certainly two different people. It's pretty clear that what we're seeing is the outcome of a power struggle, where one faction was on our side and one was against us. The second faction was originally in control, but the community's furious support tipped the balance in favor of the first -- which then seized the opportunity to put 5E out of reach of the second faction forever. (Notice how they put the Creative Commons PDF into the DDB post making the announcement? I can almost hear somebody thinking, "The big bosses could change their minds again tomorrow, so let's nail this down right freakin' now.")

When I say slimy, I am basing it off the behavior WOTC and Hasbro has exhibited over the past month, which I think was harmful, slimy and dishonest. Maybe they have done a full about face because of the backlash and this is sincere, but they have given me every reason to believe they are going to have some term in there, some thing that is being missed, that they can later point to reverse the concession they appear to be making. Again, up until one month ago, the idea that the OGL 1A could be deauthorized was utterly inconceivable. But they demonstrated a willingness to employ devious legal analysis of the terms so they could end it.

Cooporations are entities that have cultures. Some are more destructive than others. Some more deceptive. I think saying we can't make any kind of moral evaluation of a company or that we can't attribute negative personality traits to a company, simply because they are an organism made up of many many people, just doesn't make sense. It isn't like they are an unfeeling force of nature. They are made up of human beings, their decisions are made by human beings.

We don't know who made these decisions. It could have been the same people once they realized how bad of a miscalculation they made. And again I think until we have total clarity on all the implications we won't know for sure if this was a genuine effort to backtrack or an effort to plant something in the SRD 5.1-CC that can be seized upon the same way 'authorize' was seized upon in the original OGL. Hopefully my skepticism of them isn't warranted, but they haven't done much to instill me with optimism or trust.

 

[Plokman]

We cannot let them deauthorize pancakes!

A good chef listens to his gut what does your gut say? Cake!

 

[Bedrockgames]

The entire 5.1 SRD is under an irrevocable CC license. Literally the only thing more you can ask for is previous editions to be added.

I said this in my response to the other poster but I need to take a close look at the SRD 5.1-CC to know what its full ramifications might be (and I will also need to hear and read analysis from more knowledgable people than myself on it). But I don't understand why they can't say the original OGL can't be deauthorized. That was the big bone of contention here.

 

[Haplo781]

I said this in my response to the other poster but I need to take a close look at the SRD 5.1-CC to know what its full ramifications might be (and I will also need to hear and read analysis from more knowledgable people than myself on it). But I don't understand why they can't say the original OGL can't be deauthorized. That was the big bone of contention here.

They'd have to pay their lawyers to draft a new license that plugs every possible future loophole and people like you would still not trust them.

Migrating to a CC license is free.

 

[Plokman]

I said this in my response to the other poster but I need to take a close look at the SRD 5.1-CC to know what its full ramifications might be (and I will also need to hear and read analysis from more knowledgable people than myself on it). But I don't understand why they can't say the original OGL can't be deauthorized. That was the big bone of contention here.

Maybe, but for the moment lets just have a break. We got it on record they heard us on most of it Black and White Clear as a Crystal we have OGL 1.0. If they backed down once it shows they know we are more bite than bark!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's complicated.

Combined licenses are okay in theory - I can create a work under both OGL and ORC (assuming ORC comes out the way we're expecting), using some OGL sources and some ORC sources, and can then (in fact, must then) license my work out under both. That works because I'd have to specify which bits of content are OGL Open Game Content, and which are ORC Open Game Content, and which are Product Identity.

You can create a work that uses both CC and OGL sources (I posted an example above somewhere.)
What you couldnt do is take someones OGL-licensed Open Game Content, pull it into your work, and then license that out via CC, because you need the permission of the copyright owner to do so. So "pulling in" via both licenses is fine, but allowing reuse via anything except the license you obtained something under requires you get permission of the copyright owner. e.g. you can't change the licensing on someone elses work, only your own.

Right.

You can publish OGC that uses other OGC you didn't make under dual licenses. I first replied to the other poster because they claimed that you cannot publish OGC that you got from another publisher under CC. You can.

That you can't relicense it for others to use is irrelevant to that specific point.

I sometimes wish there was an easy method in english to make explicitly clear that you are replying to exactly one thing within a set of statements, not the commentary in whole, without writing half a paragraph of text to make that clear. By sometimes I mean almost every day.

And to elaborate further, barring an expert correcting me with specific licensing language, you can still relicense your own content within that work under the CC license, you just have to make clear that the license does not give a subsequent licensee access to the OGC content that isn't yours to re-license. Whether that is worth the hassle of clearly defining what is your work and what is borrowed OGC in order to do that is a different matter, that I don't really care about as I'm not in that situation.

 

[teitan]

I view this like Paizo’s union, while WOTC was oblivious to how the community would react until it leaked, they reacted quickly to the response and yes they did a lot of corporate speak but they listened like they said they would. what it means for One D&D I don’t know but I don’t imagine that being too different from what we’ve already seen unless they push it back another year to allow for major development and broader testing for the bigger changes they would need to move away from 5.1.

Someone talked some sense into them. The OGL being untouched I think will remain as it doesn’t impact their business moving forward after putting 5.1 in the CC. It’s a non-issue with the CC4.0 license.

They might release a trademark use license to police content with a branding mark.

 

[Plokman]

I view this like Paizo’s union, while WOTC was oblivious to how the community would react until it leaked, they reacted quickly to the response and yes they did a lot of corporate speak but they listened like they said they would. what it means for One D&D I don’t know but I don’t imagine that being too different from what we’ve already seen unless they push it back another year to allow for major development and broader testing for the bigger changes they would need to move away from 5.1.

Someone talked some sense into them. The OGL being untouched I think will remain as it doesn’t impact their business moving forward after putting 5.1 in the CC. It’s a non-issue with the CC4.0 license.

They might release a trademark use license to police content with a branding mark.

True they do deserve that tiny bit of a token of hand clapping, but you know the old saying "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" we weren't fooled. So shame on them, not on me (I also got into DnD after 4E so I wasn't burnt before, but I heard the stories. I supported those who like myself love creativity and being able to do whatever they want to with what they bought, that like my other passion Model Railroading is "it's my railway and I jolly well can do what I want with it.")

 

[zen_cat]

I can only imagine how bad it must have been at WOTC for this concession to be agreed to.