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]

Since the beginning of this crisis, I didn't understand why people are so against this? It seems perfectly reasonnable from a business perspective. We are finally going to see design creativity instead of D&D clones.

Maybe because we like those competitors and want them to continue to be able to pay rent and feed their families?

Also, going back on a perpetual agreement is not reasonable.

 

[mamba]

Since the beginning of this crisis, I didn't understand why people are so against this? It seems perfectly reasonnable from a business perspective. We are finally going to see design creativity instead of D&D clones.

because it is blatantly false. Also, you can have creativity either way

 

[Matt Thomason]

Since the beginning of this crisis, I didn't understand why people are so against this? It seems perfectly reasonnable from a business perspective. We are finally going to see design creativity instead of D&D clones.

Mostly because they were fine with it potentially funding major competitors until they decided they were not. It was always a possibility since 2000 that someone would make a game that rivaled D&D using the OGL. They didn't even make noises when that actually happened in 2008.

The fact they're now mad the previous management let it happen is reasonable. Them wanting to change the existing, binding, contractual arrangements without the consent of the other parties involved is not reasonable.

Also, it's most likely the vast majority of people outputting material for 5e under the OGL will just switch to the ORC, and either support Black Flag or Pathfinder instead. Neither of those will particularly push for more design creativity. The majority of small publishers don't want to design a game, just material for an existing one. What it will likely do is get more game systems opened as the major publishers jump to ORC, and possibly get some better exposure for those systems.

 

[Jer]

Since the beginning of this crisis, I didn't understand why people are so against this? It seems perfectly reasonnable from a business perspective. We are finally going to see design creativity instead of D&D clones.

There's a ton of design creativity out there. I'm boggled by people who say this when my shelves are bulging with games that aren't even close to being D&D clones. Has no-one heard of Gumshoe? Powered by the Apocalypse? Blades in the Dark? Ars Magica? Torg? Call of Cthulhu/Runequest? WOIN? Cypher System? Everything Free League publishes with their Year Zero Engine? All of Modiphius's 2d20 output? And these are just the physical books that I can see on my bookshelf - I haven't even cracked the folder of indie game PDFs from various bundles of holding and itch.io bundles to go through.

The idea that the OGL in 2023 of the Common Era is dampening creativity in the RPG design space maddens me. Was it true back in the early 00's? Sure - the d20 glut was real. But post 5e there's been a strong surge in new game output and the OGL has done nothing to stop it from happening. Honestly if you like a variety of game systems times are better now than I remember them being in the 90s, which some folks hold up as the golden age of non-D&D systems.

(Edit - actually I should say "post-4e" now that I think about it. At least some good came from the last time Wizards fooled around with yanking their partners around. And even then they didn't believe this dumb idea that they could revoke the OGL and didn't even try.)

 

[overgeeked]

Ah. Back when the internet was good.

 

[Staffan]

And, really, WotC doesn't even need to fight. Because for the money a legal battle would take, they could just buy Paizo. Lisa Stevens happily signed off on selling WotC to Hasbro. She might do the same for Paizo.
It wouldn't even cost much. Less than they paid for D&D Beyond.

Lisa Stevens might have been one of the larger shareholders in Wizards of the Coast, but I'm pretty sure she did not have anything near a controlling interest. Peter Adkison, after his divorce, had about 4%, and I would expect that Stevens' share was something similar.

As I understand it, early Wizards had paid many of their workers/freelancers in stock, at least partially. That meant that there were lots of small shareholders in the company. And when Wizards were full to the point of bursting with Pokémon money, they collectively told the management that they wanted to cash out, so they had to either go public or sell, and the result was that they sold the company to Hasbro.

That said, Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz seem to have a pretty good life already, and I'm not sure their life would be appreciably improved by additional millions.

The problem is that the architects of the deal tried to bind the hands of the future leadership of WotC with a deal that on the face of it doesn’t seem very equitable. Paizo - the biggest beneficiary - certainly wasn’t assisting WotC and I don’t believe 5e does now - with the exception of maybe selling an adventure path or two maybe! It certainly won’t help with DDB sales which they see as the future.

Knowingly entering a lopsided deal and then being amazed when the side that gets the sticky end of the stick tries to get out of the deal seems like a bit of naivety to me.

Ryan Dancey made a pretty good argument that Pathfinder to a large degree acted as a "reservoir" for disaffected D&D players from 2008 to 2014. When a large portion of the audience disliked 4e, they started playing Pathfinder instead, and when 5e was released a significant chunk of them returned to D&D. Had Pathfinder not existed, it's likely that a significant portion of those players would instead have left the game permanently.

 

[Maxperson]

Since the beginning of this crisis, I didn't understand why people are so against this? It seems perfectly reasonnable from a business perspective. We are finally going to see design creativity instead of D&D clones.

That isn't the part in question in my post. First, there are no major competitors. None. Not even Paizo is a major competitor and they are the largest OGL user out there that I am aware of. Second, the major competition that could arise would be from megacorporations who invest in movies, video games and perhaps a VTT. That hasn't happened yet and is part of what I agree that WotC wants to shut down.

My posts have been about the little guy and leaving them to the 3PP and social media content that they have been producing.

 

[Maxperson]

Maybe because we like those competitors and want them to continue to be able to pay rent and feed their families?

There aren't any major competitors and never have been. That line from WotC is a throwaway if you apply it to 3PP. It doesn't apply to them.

 

[Matt Thomason]

Was it true back in the early 00's? Sure - the d20 glut was real.

To be fair, even that didn't really divert much effort away from non-d20 games. It just brought in a heck of a lot of new blood that did make d20 games and supplements. I can remember the visual effect as my local comics+games store had to double the size of their RPG display, rather than replace non-d20 games with d20 stuff. The White Wolf and Chaosium stuff was there before, and still there afterwards.

What's probably of more importance is that some of those people that were producing pamphlet-sized d20 adventures grew because of that to be bigger companies that made non-d20 games as well. It was like the RPG company equivalent of training wheels, it helped get a lot of companies launched, and put people in positions to put out their own original games later on. It's possible we might not have a lot of those non-d20 games today if there hadn't been that explosion in 2000 that gave the industry as a whole that much-needed boost.

 

[Velderan]

That isn't the part in question in my post. First, there are no major competitors. None. Not even Paizo is a major competitor and they are the largest OGL user out there that I am aware of. Second, the major competition that could arise would be from megacorporations who invest in movies, video games and perhaps a VTT. That hasn't happened yet and is part of what I agree that WotC wants to shut down.

My posts have been about the little guy and leaving them to the 3PP and social media content that they have been producing.

Which to me is the sad part about the royalties threshold they've since backed off of; why $750k? I don't know what Paizo's sales are, but if we're going with the "we want to avoid a megacorp coming in" theory why not have the language be something like "companies with an overall revenue over $100m will have to pay a royalty of 25% on OGL related sales unless a more specific license can be agreed upon"? $750k was such a low number in the grand scheme of things that it just makes them look so out of touch IMO.