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.

 

[Scribe]

Then Hasbro should have been focusing on that back in 2000 instead of selling off their software division & hawking the D&D game rights to Infogrames. That can't claim they didn't know or had no idea. It was already obvious by this time this was goig to be a big thing. Warcraft, Diablo, Ultima Online, EverQuest, etc... were already in existence and doing very well.

This is the thing.

I've been vocal on my support of Pathfinders Wrath of the Righteous. Hell, just look at Minsc! Where did he come from? A video game!

 

[Maxperson]

But would a movie dialogue use names for items, spells, or monsters?

"Oh, no, Eldarvard, it's a red dragon! Quick, cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on the party while I Sneak Attack with my Frost Brand!"

You can mock it all you like, but it doesn't have to be in one line like that.

:: Party finds a sword:::

Wizard says, "This is an ancient frost brand. A weapon forged with the cold of a frozen star in it." - Frost brand mentioned.

::sometime later in the movie::

Halfling Rogue: "Look out! A red dragon is diving at us using the sun as cover." - Red dragon mentioned(and yes I know the dialogue is bad, it could be better).

Bard: "Grooloo, use Otiluke's Resilient Sphere! It will help us." - Otiluke's Resilient Sphere mentioned.

Wizard: "Great idea. Sing us a countercharm to aid us against the dragon fear. We got this!" - Countercharm and dragon fear mentioned.

That's still a bit exaggerated. All it takes is enough mention over the 2 hour movie of things D&D related to get you into dicey water and not all of it will sound silly when said. Though as you did above, it's easy to exaggerate things to the point of silliness.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Less than a week ago, I said that this would possibly blow over quicker than some would imagine because consumers will look for reasons to forgive in order to feed their desire to consume. Regardless of how many people here may feel about the authenticity or intent of WotC's survey and its impending results, I think that we are seeing waves of people who are ready to forgive. And all this talk about the evils of big corporations, never again buying from WotC, not producing content for WotC again, or playing other non-D&D games will soon be forgotten.

We are seeing waves, for sure, including people saying that WotC giving up on the parts of 1.1 that clearly never mattered to them, and saying nothing about the part they clearly do care about is, "good enough" for them.

However, I think it's fair to say that this has soured some people on WotC and possibly D&D permanently. Not 75% of players. Probably less than 25%.

But if the goal of this whole exercise -- and I think we can all agree on this -- was to increase revenue, isn't driving away, say, 10% of their most engaged customers a loss? At the end of the day, all of this will make the numbers go the wrong way.

 

[Jer]

If old litigious TSR didn't sue Wizardry and every subsequent CRPG, like ever, I don't think WOTC will for people having vorpal blades in things or whatever.

Exactly. They had no case and they knew they had no case because there wasn't any copyright being violated and CRPG producers were very careful to not step onto any of TSR's trademarks.

And TSR had a TON of trademarks. They trademarked everything they thought they could get away with. But you can't slap a trademark on everything and copyright only covers so much. So even if it made Gary Gygax really mad that other people were using TSR ideas without paying for them, there wasn't a whole lot they could do unless they started crossing that line into either trademark or copyright violations. (Which is why putting any kind of compatibility notice with D&D on your product was a big no-no that TSR actively sued over, and why Wizards created the d20 System Trademark to advertise compatibility, and why every 5e-compatible OGL product today puts something about "Compatible with the fifth edition of the world's biggest fantasy roleplaying game" on their cover instead of actually saying the name of it).

 

[Maxperson]

If you were going to make a movie where the details like that mattered you'd also need to actually call it D&D, which you can't under the OGL.

Why? Why would they need to call it D&D and not just, "The adventures of Martoonigan" or something? All you need to do is avoid the small handful of names listed in the legal section, most of which you'd never use anyway.

Any movie that is okay with winking at the audience and saying "Based on the 5th edition of the World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game" or whatever can also call them something other than a Gelatinous Cube.

But that's the point. With the OGL 1.0a it wouldn't have to call it something other than a Gelatinous Cube. It could straight up use all the names that aren't in the small list in the legal section.

And this doesn't even get into the fact that WotC doesn't have a monopoly on the idea of a Bard, or for plenty of other similar things in the SRD. This license is fundamentally not needed to make a D&Desque movie for a huge pile of reasons.

You're still missing the point. This is not about individual things like red dragon or bard. It's about using evil fire breathing red dragons, gas breathing green dragons, cold breathing white dragons, lighting breathing blue dragons and acid breathing black dragons to fight good fire breathing gold dragons, lightning breathing bronze dragons, etc. All while knights aided by the platinum dragon king and mounted on the good dragons use silver headed lances to fight off the evil hordes of 5 headed dragon queen.

None of that is forbidden by the OGL 1.0a, but when put together are clearly D&D. Without the OGL 1.0a WotC might win that lawsuit.

 

[J.Quondam]

If you were going to make a movie where the details like that mattered you'd also need to actually call it D&D, which you can't under the OGL. Any movie that is okay with winking at the audience and saying "Based on the 5th edition of the World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game" or whatever can also call them something other than a Gelatinous Cube. And this doesn't even get into the fact that WotC doesn't have a monopoly on the idea of a Bard, or for plenty of other similar things in the SRD. This license is fundamentally not needed to make a D&Desque movie for a huge pile of reasons.

I think the point is not that a studio would actually need the OGL to use a frostbrand or owlbear or whatever; but rather that the OGL could be used to easily thwart any legal challenge that might be brought regarding such elements. In other words, Hasbro/WotC may be thinking that the OGL1.0 limits their legal options on protecting those select bits of D&D-specific IP that are released under it. Which is true.
Now is that a realistic concern?
* shrug *
I doubt it, but who knows what lurks in the paranoid mind of corporate IP holders.

 

[Maxperson]

If they filed all of the Forgotten Realms stuff off and took off the D&D logo and released it as a generic fantasy movie? They might get sued if Hasbro was dumb as a box of rocks but I suspect they'd lose big time. Because most of the things you're looking at in these clips are concepts that you can't own that way.

Depends. If they used a map that was identical to the realms and included cities like. Seadeep on the Knife Coast, north of Spalder's Gate and the great library of Lantern Keep, and so on, it would also fail the smell test. Changing the names isn't all you have to do. If you have enough things that are clearly WotC owned, but have thinly veiled name changes, you will also be in trouble.

But again, everything in the SRD that isn't denied in the small Legal Information section is usable as is under OGL 1.0a. They don't even need to change the names. And the more names used by D&D that you can use, the more it will appeal to fans of the game.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Can you imagine what their Net Promoter Score must look like right now?

I can see it now; a solemn business meeting at Hasbro, a junior exec, shaking, visibly sweating his trembling hands holding this week's NPS results.

He sweats onto the paper, looks at the senior execs arrayed before him, he wipes his brow, clears his throat and says "I'm afraid, gentleman, that our new score is...peepeepoopoo".

 

[Minigiant]

Guys, I think the movie is fine.

It's likely the associated board game, card game, action RPG, tbrpg, gacha game and TV show WOTC is worried about.

 

[Scribe]

Guys, I think the movie is fine.

It's likely the associated board game, card game, action RPG, tbrpg, gacha game and TV show WOTC is worried about.

Board Game? Not going to be SRD.
Card Game? Not going to be SRD.
Action RPG (Computer Game)? Based on SRD.
Gacha? Not SRD.
TV Show? Not SRD.

Its just not this.