WotC Talks OGL... Again! Draft Coming Jan 20th With Feedback Survey; v1 De-Auth Still On

Following last week's partial walk-back on the upcoming Open Game Licence terms, WotC has posted another update about the way forward.

The new update begins with another apology and a promise to be more transparent. To that end, WotC proposes to release the draft of the new OGL this week, with a two-week survey feedback period following it.

WotC Walks Back Some OGL Changes, But Not All

Wizards of the Coast has finally made a statement regarding the OGL. The statement says that the leaked version was a draft designed to solicit feedback and that they are walking back some problematic elements, but don't address others--most notably that the current OGL v1.0a is still being...

www.enworld.org

They also list a number of points of clarity --

• Videos, accessories, VTT content, DMs Guild will not be affected by the new license, none of which is related to the OGL
• The royalties and ownership rights clauses are, as previously noted, going away

OGL v1 Still Being 'De-Authorized'
However, OGL v1.0a still looks like it's being de-authorized. As with the previous announcement, that specific term is carefully avoided, and like that announcement it states that previously published OGL v1 content will continue to be valid; however it notably doesn't mention that the OGL v1 can be used for content going forward, which is a de-authorization.

The phrase used is "Nothing will impact any content you have published under OGL 1.0a. That will always be licensed under OGL 1.0a." -- as noted, this does not make any mention of future content. If you can't publish future content under OGL 1.0a, then it has been de-authorized. The architect of the OGL, Ryan Dancey, along with WotC itself at the time, clearly indicated that the license could not be revoked or de-authorized.

While the royalty and ownership clauses were, indeed, important to OGL content creators and publishers such as myself and many others, it is also very important not to let that overshadow the main goal: the OGL v1.0a.

Per Ryan Dancey in response this announcement: "They must not. They can only stop the bleeding by making a clear and simple statement that they cannot and will not deauthorize or revoke v1.0a".

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

Amend At-Will
Also not mentioned is the leaked draft's ability to be amended at-will by WotC. An agreement which can be unilaterally changed in any way by one party is not an agreement, it's a blank cheque. They could simply add the royalties or ownership clauses back in at any time, or add even more onerous clauses.

All-in-all this is mainly just a rephrasing of last week's announcement addressing some of the tonal criticisms widely made about it. However, it will be interesting to see the new draft later this week. I would encourage people to take the feedback survey and clearly indicate that the OGL v1.0a must be left intact.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They gave us something in 2000, two years after Google was founded, before anyone shopped on Amazon, a few years after Marvel was bankrupt and when Phantom Menace was making people question if Star Wars was still good. At a time when TSR had gone under and TTRPPGs were a tiny industry. Before DriveThruRPG was a thing, when 3PP only meant physical books and everyone wasn't carrying a portable computer in their pocket capable of holding a game store's worth of books.
It was a very different time.
It seems naïve to expect those rules to apply forever regardless of how the world changes.

Regardless, it's going to change. Whining about how unfair it is doesn't help and isn't productive.
The OGL 1.0a is going to go away. That's the reality. The community can with scream that it's unfair or find a way to get something good out of the survey and make the new OGL more passable. Find the opportunity.


Yes. A million other games. Each played by like 30 people worldwide, all with different schedules and free days to you.

Green Ronin is a major player in the 3PP scene. There's ONE Fantasy Age game listed on Roll20 right now. ONE Shadow of the Demon Lord game.
"Not play" indeed.

It doesn't matter that it was a different time. The OGL 1.0a was meant to be, and stated to be in writing repeatably by WotC, irrevokable. I understand that the current corporate leadership wishes their predecessors had done things differently, but they didn't, and they have to live with it. They would be better off making 6e its own game, less compatible with a system they have no control over, and putting their walled garden around it. Since they seem to think the name, "Dungeons & Dragons" is so very valuable, they can trade off that.

 

[eyeheartawk]

WotC is going to win that fight. So the community needs to surrender the OGL. To let WotC pull the license. But, having acknowledged that, they can ask for something else in exchange for the OGL that they didn't have before.

I was gonna ask for a racially insulting species of playable monkey people, but uh, it turns out we already got those.

So, I'm all out of ideas.

 

[Alzrius]

That's not what I'm asking.
WotC wants to take away the OGL. The community doesn't want them to take away the OGL.

WotC is going to win that fight.

That last part is where you're wrong. You seem to think that WotC "winning that fight" is axiomatic, presumably because you either feel that their arguments have merit, or that their greater amount of money than any potential challenger guarantees victory. Neither is as true as you're making them out to be.

So the community needs to surrender the OGL.

Incorrect. The fight, as you describe it, is not unwinnable, and so it's incumbent on the community not to surrender the OGL.

 

[eyeheartawk]

They would be better off making 6e its own game, less compatible with a system they have no control over, and putting their walled garden around it. Since they seem to think the name, "Dungeons & Dragons" is so very valuable, they can trade off that.

It would have been the easiest solution while also causing the least friction in the community. The fact that they are so dead-set on removing the old OGL means they have anti-competitive reasons at the heart of their decision.

 

[Maxperson]

The OGL isn’t stopping them.

From the OGL 1.1 Q&A leak.

“OGL wasn’t intended to fund major competitors and it wasn’t intended to allow people to make D&D apps, videos, or anything other than printed (or printable) materials for use while gaming. We are updating the OGL in part to make that very clear.”

So the proposed OGL 1.1 deauthorized 1.0a and 1.0, and would have prevented people from making anything other than printed or printable materials. So no VTT, movies, social media videos, tweets, etc.

They have since the outcry and DDB cancellations walked back the social media aspect.

 

[Micah Sweet]

THAT'S THE FREAKIN' POINT!!!!

They want to take something. We need to ask for something that we didn't have before.
But instead, everyone is just focused on what they're losing that they're not even stopping to consider what they could gain. What they could negotiate for.
So they're just going to take it and not give anything back because the community was too intractable and stubborn to actually make a deal.

I don't accept your theory that they can de-authorize the 1.0a, and would actually love it if you stopped telling people to give up on that point.

 

[Maxperson]

Video Games that used OGL

Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
Worlds of Magic aka Planar Conquest
Low Magic Age
Demons Age (admitted already gone due to infringing on IP but not WotC).
Knights of the Chalice 1 & 2 (based on 3.5)
Sands of Slumber (based on 5E)

Games that you might think use the OGL but don't
Solasta: Crown of the Magister - supposedly negotiated a seperate license, rather than use the OGL to use SRD material.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

So yeah not many, but not none and who knows what's in production.

Still does it really matter? Just as Words with Friends didn't need a license to exist does a computer game that uses the mechanics of D&D but without the IP need the OGL at all?

Thanks. I'd heard of Kingmaker, but the rest nope, not at all, but then I don't really play video games any longer. Family life has me too busy to schedule much other than my weekly D&D group meet-up and some WoW.

 

[Amrûnril]

THAT'S THE FREAKIN' POINT!!!!

They want to take something. We need to ask for something that we didn't have before.
But instead, everyone is just focused on what they're losing that they're not even stopping to consider what they could gain. What they could negotiate for.
So they're just going to take it and not give anything back because the community was too intractable and stubborn to actually make a deal.

Wizards' core demand is the ability to unilaterally alter the terms of their existing deals. So long as this remains the case, any other concession they make is intrinsically worthless.

 

[Matt Thomason]

THAT'S THE FREAKIN' POINT!!!!

They want to take something. We need to ask for something that we didn't have before.
But instead, everyone is just focused on what they're losing that they're not even stopping to consider what they could gain. What they could negotiate for.
So they're just going to take it and not give anything back because the community was too intractable and stubborn to actually make a deal.

Thankfully, they cannot unilaterally take anything away that they have already given. Everyone that has used the OGL has a binding, bilateral contract with WotC that neither side has the ability to cancel unilaterally. It is not one single agreement that can simply be "cancelled", all WotC can do is cease offering new ones.

Everyone is free to negotiate on an individual basis here with WotC for a cancellation of their individual OGL contract. There is no simple mass negotiation between the community and WotC that can actually affect those individual contracts between specific parties.

Our only demand is that they recognize this fact publically and stop pretending they have legal rights that they do not. Once they do that, we can negotiate as individuals - if they want to offer me a dollar sum to agree together to cancel our contract, they can do that, and I may well accept. That has zero bearing on anyone else's contract with WotC.

 

[Velderan]

It doesn't matter that it was a different time. The OGL 1.0a was meant to be, and stated to be in writing repeatably by WotC, irrevokable. I understand that the current corporate leadership wishes their predecessors had done things differently, but they didn't, and they have to live with it. They would be better off making 6e its own game, less compatible with a system they have no control over, and putting their walled garden around it. Since they seem to think the name, "Dungeons & Dragons" is so very valuable, they can trade off that.

At this point, I honestly have to wonder what would piss off the fanbase less; making a legit 6e that isn't compatible with the last decade of material (assuming we get into the wayback machine and take back them saying it would be) or their current path.