WotC To Give Core D&D Mechanics To Community Via Creative Commons

Wizards of the Coast, in a move which surprised everbody, has announced that it will give away the core D&D mechanics to the community via a Creative Commons license.

This won't include 'quintessentially D&D" stuff like owlbears and magic missile, but it wil include the 'core D&D mechanics'.

So what does it include? It's important to note that it's only a fraction of what's currently available as Open Gaming Content under the existing Open Gaming License, so while it's termed as a 'give-away' it's actually a reduction. It doesn't include classes, spells, or magic items. It does include the combat rules, ability scores, and the core mechanic.

 

[guachi]

Those wishing to continue fanning this flame until the brand is in ashes, you are free to do so as you wish, but I am not supporting the idea of seeing D&D burn so a few people can feel warm. We're making progress. This was a huge step forward.

How is what we see a step forward from what already exists?

 

[Prime_Evil]

Open Game Content (OGC) is not even a notion defined or existing in the licence... 23 years of OGC are now not even usable in new publication under this licence...

There's also the issue that games completely unrelated to D&D that used the OGL are still screwed. In some cases, the original publisher is still around and can update the license. But this is not always the case - consider Open Game Content such as the Action System from Gold Rush Games or the OpenD6 System from West End Games. Neither of these use any WoTC IP, but the community loses access to remix the OGC if WoTC can redact the right to produce future non-D&D materials under v1.0a of the OGL. And then there's stuff like the Anime SRD from Guardians of Order. Guardians of Order died around 2005 - 2006, so this material will also be lost to the community forever. A smarter move by WoTC would be to revoke the OGL v.1.0a for works derived from D&D but allow its continued use by third-parties operating outside of the D&D ecosystem.

 

[treps]

There's also the issue that games completely unrelated to D&D that used the OGL are still screwed. In some cases, the original publisher is still around and can update the license. But this is not always the case - consider Open Game Content such as the Action System from Gold Rush Games or the OpenD6 System from West End Games. Neither of these use any WoTC IP, but the community loses access to remix the OGC if WoTC can redact the right to produce future non-D&D materials under v1.0a of the OGL. And then there's stuff like the Anime SRD from Guardians of Order. Guardians of Order died around 2005 - 2006, so this material will also be lost to the community forever. A smarter move by WoTC would be to revoke the OGL v.1.0a for works derived from D&D but allow its continued use by third-parties operating outside of the D&D ecosystem.

Except they published their SRD under a licence that was perpetual, so they have no way to retract part of it from the license ! Once the SRD (3, 3.5 or 5.1) became OGC it's for ever !
The deauthorization of the 1.0a for some parts of what have been licensed is not even possible... And by saying that everything published with 1.0a is still "legal" they just that, even for their own SRDs...

 

[Staffan]

As a rule of thumb, if a term exists in a dictionary of the English language, it is laughable for Hasbro-WotC to claim to "own" it.

They can't own "gnome". They have a much better chance of owning "rock gnome that is highly intelligent, fairly resilient, have a life span of centuries, can see in darkness, is resistant to mental magic, knowledgeable about artifice, and is good at building clockwork devices"

 

[Lucas Yew]

Probably only a laughable fraction of the rules expressions. And will most likely have the NonCommercial and NonDerivative poison pills too.

Cynical? They gave me all the signs to be...

 

[Staffan]

The fundamental problem I see is that Wizards seem to be misunderstanding the purpose of the Open Gaming License. They see it as "the thing that lets people make stuff for our game." That's like saying that clerics are for healing. To be sure, that is/was a large portion of what it's used for in practice, but it's not the whole picture.

The OGL is a method for building a web of interconnected relationships. Wizards publishes a rule set, Malhavoc Games a book of spells, Necromancer Games a book of monsters, and I can use them all in making an adventure and then Mongoose can incorporate the magic items I made in my book in yet another thing*. The OGL 1.2 focuses exclusively on licensing the 5.1 SRD from Wizards, nothing else. There's no virality to it. That means it's no good at fostering the kind of collaborative environment the OGL 1.0(a) does.

Further, many other companies have used the OGL as a means of encouraging similar structures for their own material, such as Mongoose's BRP version via Runequest and Legend, Evil Hat's FATE, or Free League's Year Zero Engine. The claim to "deauthorizing" the OGL 1.0(a) causes a lot of legal confusion for these materials.

And that, of course, leaves aside the point of whether they can even deauthorize the OGL 1.0(a) in the first place. Signs point to "no", but legal minds here have opined that it's not as clear as it sounds.

The thing is that they could do pretty much everything they claim to want to do by returning to the way things were done in the early 00s, by using dual licenses. License the SRD under the OGL, and the brand under a different license. The brand license would allow people to use the creator badges, and ideally some kind of unambiguous statement of compatibility. That's where you can put requirements on actually maintaining said compatibility as well as morality clauses and whatnot.

* Yeah yeah, these are either gone or not doing much with d20 these days, I don't keep up with the current 3PPs.

 

[Minigiant]

The fundamental problem I see is that Wizards seem to be misunderstanding the purpose of the Open Gaming License. They see it as "the thing that lets people make stuff for our game." That's like saying that clerics are for healing. To be sure, that is/was a large portion of what it's used for in practice, but it's not the whole picture.

The OGL is a method for building a web of interconnected relationships. Wizards publishes a rule set, Malhavoc Games a book of spells, Necromancer Games a book of monsters, and I can use them all in making an adventure and then Mongoose can incorporate the magic items I made in my book in yet another thing*. The OGL 1.2 focuses exclusively on licensing the 5.1 SRD from Wizards, nothing else. There's no virality to it. That means it's no good at fostering the kind of collaborative environment the OGL 1.0(a) does.

Further, many other companies have used the OGL as a means of encouraging similar structures for their own material, such as Mongoose's BRP version via Runequest and Legend, Evil Hat's FATE, or Free League's Year Zero Engine. The claim to "deauthorizing" the OGL 1.0(a) causes a lot of legal confusion for these materials.

And that, of course, leaves aside the point of whether they can even deauthorize the OGL 1.0(a) in the first place. Signs point to "no", but legal minds here have opined that it's not as clear as it sounds.

The thing is that they could do pretty much everything they claim to want to do by returning to the way things were done in the early 00s, by using dual licenses. License the SRD under the OGL, and the brand under a different license. The brand license would allow people to use the creator badges, and ideally some kind of unambiguous statement of compatibility. That's where you can put requirements on actually maintaining said compatibility as well as morality clauses and whatnot.

* Yeah yeah, these are either gone or not doing much with d20 these days, I don't keep up with the current 3PPs.

WOTC fully understands what an OGL is and its purpose.

They don't want an OGL because it takes too much power out their hands..
WOTC only accepted an OGL because they wanted to nsure D&D's survival should they fall like TSR and continued it because the community wanted it.

The issue now is that they have thought the Net Profit with a real OGL is a lot less that the Net Profit without a OGL or with a hallf-OGL.
Until the community can explain that Net Profit with a real OGL is the highest, every company (if it lives long enough) will attempt to remove its OGLs over and over. It's just logical.

 

[Morrus]

@Morrus, since you guys reworded everything in the SRD and 5E's core engine is released in this way, do you think it would be possible to continue making Level Up content only with the CC rules? I know it's too early to give a specific answer, but to me this sounds like you guys don't need to de-OGLify Level Up anymore!

That’s exactly what I’ll be asking our lawyer.

 

[Jolly Ruby]

out of these the only one that is even the least bit interesting (as in, you cannot simply take it because it is public domain anyway) is the displacer beast. Dwarf, Elf, ... does not depend on WotC, neither does Fighter, Cleric, ... and the two most basic spells, great choice

It's less about if they own elves, clerics and dwarves, and more about the wording and creative choices behind their iteration of these things. Sure you can just recreate a virtually equal elf, but it's easier to build a network of collaborative works around it if you have all the basics spelled out, and you can safely reference stuff like detect magic, turn undead and fey ancestry by name. The ideal scenario would be all the SRDs in CC-BY from first to last page. The CC-BY stuff is clearly a peace offering, but a document without classes, races or a single statblock is almost like a mockery.

 

[Mortus]

The supposed need to revoke OGL 1.0a by WOTC for fear of being associated with hateful material may be a smokescreen. Questions for any lawyers out there (I’m not one) : Couldn’t a racist parody or satire of the game be created at any time in the US? Maybe someone could take WOTC’s public missteps in that area and super exaggerate it?

 

[wingsandsword]

A smarter move by WoTC would be to revoke the OGL v.1.0a for works derived from D&D but allow its continued use by third-parties operating outside of the D&D ecosystem.

Yeah, but WotC doesn't care about any of that.

To them, especially to current WotC leadership, the OGL is nothing but a license related to making D&D-derived works.

The fact that it was used elsewhere in the industry for roles completely unrelated to D&D is something they absolutely don't care about.

 

[wingsandsword]

The supposed need to revoke OGL 1.0a by WOTC for fear of being associated with hateful material may be a smokescreen. Questions for any lawyers out there (I’m not one) : Couldn’t a racist parody or satire of the game be created at any time in the US? Maybe someone could take WOTC’s public missteps in that area and super exaggerate it?

Parody is protected free speech. If something was made as a parody of D&D it would have at least a little more protection than just a copy of D&D.

I agree that the hateful content thing is a smokescreen, I think it's just a way for them to block publication of any work they don't want published, for any token reason they can come up with. There have literally been editorials about how the whole fantasy genre is inherently racist, you could come up with a token excuse (in bad faith) that virtually any product on the market is some form of bigotry. They will claim the license is irrevocable. . .while having a backdoor clause that lets them revoke the use of it for anyone they want for any product they want, for any reason they want as long as it can tangentially be tied to any form of hate speech.

 

[Voadam]

The OGL 1.0 was a safe harbor intended to be irrevocable and ensure D&D and the whole of OGC would be open and available regardless of what happened with WotC in the future.

WotC is claiming the ability to stop that entirely with a revision and turn it into something in their revised one that can be cancelled in their sole discretion that you cannot challenge.

"You will not include content in Your Licensed Works that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing, or engage in conduct that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing. We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action."

Also that will be terminated if you infringe on or challenge any of their claims of IP of any of their licensed content which means challenging things like elf or fighter or goblin.

"We may immediately terminate your license if you infringe any of our intellectual property; bring an action challenging our ownership of Our Licensed Content, trademarks, or patents; violate any law in relation to your activities under this license; or violate Section 6(f)."

If they claim all of the licensed content as IP then any use of any of it in a non OGL product can arguably be considered infringing and be cause for termination.

 

[Bagpuss]

How is what we see a step forward from what already exists?

I assume you mean the OGL1.0a compared to this 1.2. Clearly 1.2 is an improvement on 1.1.

So compared to 1.0a What has improved for users of the OGL.

It patches the hole in OGL 1.0a about not being irrevocable.

It's now right there in section 2. They cannot modify it except in the part about who you attribute and who you notify (I assume in case those details change). They can only terminate if you breach it (7b), or if the license if found not to be enforceable (9d).

The CC BY 4, license itself is irrevocable, so the stuff they put in there can't be touched. That's an improvement even if you don't go with the OGL.

I mean it still has some issues but that patches the hole in OGL1.0a about "irrevocable".

______________________________________________________________

You don't have to include a copy of the OGL (section 10 on 1.0) in your published document, just putting the badge on is enough (5a in 1.2). Which is going to save a on paper if you do print runs of your book.
_______________________________________________________________

So there's that, I mean really not much is an improvement on OGL1.0a for publishers, but if that is going away this one isn't remotely as onerous as the 1.1 leak we saw.

__________________________________________________________

However I think you should be concerned if you are in the VTT game or someone that uses an existing VTT. The clause in the Virtual Tabletop Policy of VTT to only "replicate the experience of sitting around the table playing D&D with your friends" is worrisome.

It will stifle development, as additional features might not fall into this remit, second a lot of the features existing VTT have already breach this. Dynamic lighting isn't something you get in normal play, you might be able to claim fog of war is okay as the GM reveals the map as you go. Roll20 can already do animated spell effects and that is clearly called out as something that isn't allowed. Are they going to have to remove features to become compliant? You can bet if so those are features D&DBeyond's own VTT will have (when it appears).

___________________________________________________________

Seems to me the leaked OGL was written by lawyers and execs that wanted all the pie. This second one has realised how much ill will that has caused for so little gain, but they still want to get control over VTT for their plans for monetization.

 

[Voadam]

There is no OGC under OGL 1.2 as proposed.

You could not use Kobold Press monster book monsters in your adventures under the license. You would need to get a separate agreement with KP to do so.

Even if they put in old edition SRDs, you cannot make OSE, Swords & Wizardry, Pathfinder, OSRIC stuff, etc. You would need a separate license from anyone you wanted to use stuff from.

 

[Velderan]

I'm way behind on this conversation, so this may have been asked but does anything in the Creative Commons licensing prevent a creator from making a product containing racist or bigoted material?

If NuTSR leveraged the content in CC, could they make "Racial Slur and other Racial Slur" a war game to prove which race is superior? Could WotC do anything to stop that?

 

[Bagpuss]

The OGL 1.0 was a safe harbor intended to be irrevocable and ensure D&D and the whole of OGC would be open and available regardless of what happened with WotC in the future.

WotC is claiming the ability to stop that entirely with a revision and turn it into something in their revised one that can be cancelled in their sole discretion that you cannot challenge.

"You will not include content in Your Licensed Works that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing, or engage in conduct that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing. We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action."

Agreed and I think since "harmful" is something so unclear. I suspect it is so they could cut off certain publishers that continue to work with artists/writers that are problematic or are problematic themselves (I can think of an example in each case). I really don't like it as a clause but I see why they have put it in. It's probably the main reason this isn't truly an open license.

Also that will be terminated if you infringe on or challenge any of their claims of IP of any of their licensed content which means challenging things like elf or fighter or goblin.

No it doesn't that stuff is allowed in the OGL, but aren't in the Creative Commons bit, if you didn't use the OGL then you would have to come up with your own Elves. Use the OGL and you can use WotC ones. If you come up with your own Elves then you aren't infringing and don't need to use the OGL so it couldn't be terminated anyway. If you use their Elves then you are under the OGL and wouldn't infringe either because you are using it under license.

"We may immediately terminate your license if you infringe any of our intellectual property; bring an action challenging our ownership of Our Licensed Content, trademarks, or patents; violate any law in relation to your activities under this license; or violate Section 6(f)."

If they claim all of the licensed content as IP then any use of any of it in a non OGL product can arguably be considered infringing and be cause for termination.

This is more so they can stop people using Beholders or Eberron as a setting. I think the main concern that this clause is in to protect, is the "bring an action challenging our ownership" say you produce a feat or several feats, and later WotC produce a book that has similar feats. There have been writers in the past that have claimed WotC is copying their content. I don't think any have gone to court, but they have certainly claimed so on twitter (which is enough to damage their reputation (although not as much as OGL1.1)). They want to protect against that.

 

[Xyxox]

I assume you mean the OGL1.0a compared to this 1.2. Clearly 1.2 is an improvement on 1.1.

So compared to 1.0a What has improved for users of the OGL.

It patches the hole in OGL 1.0a about not being irrevocable.

Except they make it revocable in Section 9 (b).

 

[Bagpuss]

I'm way behind on this conversation, so this may have been asked but does anything in the Creative Commons licensing prevent a creator from making a product containing racist or bigoted material?

If NuTSR leveraged the content in CC, could they make "Racial Slur and other Racial Slur" a war game to prove which race is superior? Could WotC do anything to stop that?

No, I don't think it does, so it seems odd that they really want to keep that clause in 1.2 but at the same time use a completely open license like CC BY.

 

[Bagpuss]

Except they make it revocable in Section 9 (b).

Do you mean (d) as I did mention that (b) doesn't seem to mention anything about being revoked. I did mention 9d.

The point of section 9d is (quoted below) is that if the license is unenforceable then there is no point in having the license. The whole point of a license is so it has some legal standing, if it is shown not to have any then it makes sense to void it, because it will have effectively been voided anyway.

"9 (d) Severability. If any part of this license is held to be unenforceable or invalid for any reason, Wizards may declare the entire license void, either as between it and the party that obtained the ruling or in its entirety. Unless Wizards elects to do so, the balance of this license will be enforced as if that part which is unenforceable or invalid did not exist."

It is a pretty common clause to have. Severability Clause Sample Clauses: 6k Samples | Law Insider

The old OGL also had a bit about it being unenforceable.

14. Reformation: If any provision of this License is held to be unenforceable, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable.

If anything that's worse, that's say we can change the license you've already agreed to if we find it can't be enforced to make it enforceable. At least with the new license they can't change it on you without you getting out of it.