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.

 

[Voadam]

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". 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.

It is a big open vulnerability to people who sign on that is quite different from OGL 1.0 which has no such comparable risk for licensees.

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.

That depends entirely on WotC's interpretation of their IP rights and what infringes on it. How far their IP extends on elves is not a clear line.

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 publishers 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. They want to protect against that, because they might have come up with it independently.

Probably, but it also shields them (to the extent threatened termination is leverage) from anyone licensing stuff under the OGL challenging them if they claim the licensee's non-OGL stuff is too close to licensed content under the OGL. So if WotC push their elves interpretation or whatever they could use a threat of immediate termination to get licensees to knuckle under on non-OGL stuff.

It is another potential avenue for WotC to leverage control over licensees outside of the licensed products.

I think it would be prudent to consider how things can potentially go under the licenses if there are changes of direction at WotC. They have been known to change their mind on licenses after all .

 

[overgeeked]

I think it would be prudent to consider how things can potentially go under the licenses if there are changes of direction at WotC. They have been known to change their mind on licenses after all.

Exactly. Before you sign listen to the more cynical voices and read what the lawyers are saying.

Just because you want to believe WotC now doesn’t mean management will never change or they’ll never abuse these easily abusable terms. It’s the potential for abuse that’s the problem. WotC has repeatedly shown themselves to be acting in bad faith, breaking contracts, lying, abusing morality clauses, on and on and on. No matter how much you like the game they produce, they’re still bad actors.

 

[Velderan]

Exactly. Before you sign listen to the more cynical voices and read what the lawyers are saying.

Just because you want to believe WotC now doesn’t mean management will never change or they’ll never abuse these easily abusable terms. It’s the potential for abuse that’s the problem. WotC has repeatedly shown themselves to be acting in bad faith, breaking contracts, lying, abusing morality clauses, on and on and on. No matter how much you like the game they produce, they’re still bad actors.

And also consider a larger corporation like Disney may someday buy Hasbro and be even less inclined to have anything open, so any clause that allows them to revoke a license could be twisted in ways we may not consider today.

 

[eyeheartawk]

And also consider a larger corporation like Disney may someday buy Hasbro and be even less inclined to have anything open, so any clause that allows them to revoke a license could be twisted in ways we may not consider today.

Right, well, Disney had the distinct legal position that when they buy a company, say 20th Century Fox, they only bought its assets and not its liabilities. So they weren't paying royalties they should have been. Which, I'm no lawyer but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way. If these companies think they can get away with it, no matter how wrong it is, they'll try. There needs to be ironclad language and mechanisms to ensure that they can't abuse it or change their mind again at any point in the future.

 

[Parmandur]

Like KP is gonna drop Black Flag regardless.

Yeah, one of the main effects here is that Kobold Press can use the 5E rules verbatim without even agreeing to the OGL, and just make their own Classes, Races, Spells, Monsters, etc. and put those options out as open content. That's awssome

 

[Xyxox]

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.

"Wizards may declare the entire license void"
That's all you need to know bout that.

 

[Xyxox]

Yeah, one of the main effects here is that Kobold Press can use the 5E rules verbatim without even agreeing to the OGL, and just make their own Classes, Races, Spells, Monsters, etc. and put those options out as open content. That's awssome

I don't see how it is possible for Kobold Press to do that under what is proposed.To get everything in the 5E rules, they must agree to the new OGL.

 

[overgeeked]

I don't see how it is possible for Kobold Press to do that under what is proposed.To get everything in the 5E rules, they must agree to the new OGL.

Or they release something before the new OGL is officially released which means that product is grandfathered in.

 

[timbannock]

I don't see how it is possible for Kobold Press to do that under what is proposed.To get everything in the 5E rules, they must agree to the new OGL.

They don't want to publish "everything in the 5e rules." They want to publish a game system that uses the open parts (in the current draft, that would be the CC mechanics spelled out from the SRD 5.1) and build their own Classes, Races, Spells, Monsters, etc. Since they already have a giant back catalog of those, that may be easier for them to pull off than many.

 

[Bosen]

The concept and the name "elf" belong to the cultural heritages of Nordic and British nations, and to some degree elsewhere too.

Elf is public domain.

Right, though the specific expression of certain features/abilities may not be... mileage will vary.

 

[Voadam]

They don't want to publish "everything in the 5e rules." They want to publish a game system that uses the open parts (in the current draft, that would be the CC mechanics spelled out from the SRD 5.1) and build their own Classes, Races, Spells, Monsters, etc. Since they already have a giant back catalog of those, that may be easier for them to pull off than many.

Where is the line on derivative copyright rights for D&D ghouls as you look at Kobold's ghoul empire with paralyzing touch undead Imperial Ghouls, Darakhul, Iron Ghouls, etc.

How much IP does WotC have in the trade dress type elements of a monster stat block or a spell?

5e bare bones core mechanics are creative commons. Classes, spells, monsters, etc. are not safe harbored. Kobold has built a lot off the D&D OGC bones. That is partly the point of a large number of OGL products.

 

[Bagpuss]

"Wizards may declare the entire license void"
That's all you need to know bout that.

No it isn't the condition that they can declare it void is important to. The only condition is if it is challenged in court and found to be unenforceable, at which point it is effectively void anyway.

 

[Xyxox]

They don't want to publish "everything in the 5e rules." They want to publish a game system that uses the open parts (in the current draft, that would be the CC mechanics spelled out from the SRD 5.1) and build their own Classes, Races, Spells, Monsters, etc. Since they already have a giant back catalog of those, that may be easier for them to pull off than many.

SRD 5.1 will not end up under the Creative Commons in total. Only part of it will, and likely that will be very small, though we do not yet know the extent of it.

 

[Jer]

SRD 5.1 will not end up under the Creative Commons in total. Only part of it will, and likely that will be very small, though we do not yet know the extent of it.

I mean, they list the pages on the document. So we kind of at least know their intent.

The core D&D mechanics, which are located at pages 56-104, 254-260, and 358-359 of this System Reference Document 5.1 (but not the examples used on those pages), are licensed to you under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

(from their draft for discussion document)

We skip all of the classes and races to get to page 56.

Pages 56-104 has sections that are under the headings "Beyond 1st Level" (Which beyond advancement also includes multiclassing, alignment, languages, inspiration, Backgrounds), "Equipment", "Feats", "Using Ability Scores","Time", "Movement","The Environment", "Resting", "Between Adventures", "Order of Combat","Actions in Combat","Damage and Healing","Mounted Combat", "Underwater Combat", "Spellcasting" .

Then we skip all of the spells. We also skip over the rules for Traps, Diseases, Madness, Objects, Poisons, and Magic Items.
(I have no idea if the skipping of the rules for Traps, Diseases, Madness, Objects, and Poisons is deliberate or accidental due to the quasi-random organization the 5.1 SRD has. It's clear that the spells and magic items are deliberately left out tho).

Now we're at pages 254-260 which is Monsters, and covers the general terminology of a monster stat block.

We skip starting at page 261 - which is where the monster descriptions start - to pages 358 and 359, which is the summary of Conditions.

So it's the basic core rules minus the rules for Traps, Diseases, Madness, Objects, Poison, and the general rules for how Magic Items work (which again might be an oversight rather than intentional). No classes, no races, spells, no magic items. Just some but not all of the mechanics. The six basic ability scores are listed under "Using Ability Scores", so at least we're safe from them deciding to sue someone because they used the six common D&D ability scores.

BTW - I didn't notice this yesterday but it specifically excludes "examples" from the Creative Commons release. So they're being really precious about "protecting" the one Feat that is in the SRD (Grappler) and the one Background that is in the SRD (Acolyte) from nasty people who would use their examples in violation of their morality clause.

EDIT: And in case it's not clear, the core mechanic of roll a d20, add a number, compare to a difficulty is in the "Using Ability Scores" section and also in the combat section, even though you might think the core mechanic of the game would be on page 1 of a reference document.

 

[Clint_L]

BTW - I didn't notice this yesterday but it specifically excludes "examples" from the Creative Commons release. So they're being really precious about "protecting" the one Feat that is in the SRD (Grappler) and the one Background that is in the SRD (Acolyte) from nasty people who would use their examples in violation of their morality clause.

Dammit. There goes my adult fan fiction that opens on a scene of two acolytes grappling...

 

[overgeeked]

SRD 5.1 will not end up under the Creative Commons in total. Only part of it will, and likely that will be very small, though we do not yet know the extent of it.

They were specific which pages would end up in CC. It's been posted several times in this thread.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't see how it is possible for Kobold Press to do that under what is proposed.To get everything in the 5E rules, they must agree to the new OGL.

It's in the provided document.

 

[timbannock]

Where is the line on derivative copyright rights for D&D ghouls as you look at Kobold's ghoul empire with paralyzing touch undead Imperial Ghouls, Darakhul, Iron Ghouls, etc.

How much IP does WotC have in the trade dress type elements of a monster stat block or a spell?

5e bare bones core mechanics are creative commons. Classes, spells, monsters, etc. are not safe harbored. Kobold has built a lot off the D&D OGC bones. That is partly the point of a large number of OGL products.

But the point remains that Kobold Press has all of these things as a basis to work off of that are their IP, which WOTC doesn't own, and if there is a potential for derivative claims, they have plenty of precedent to fall back on, at the least. Again, I'm simply saying that have a bank of both player and GM rules options to start from that few other rivals have.

 

[Clint_L]

Are we starting to get a consensus on what the 3PP community at large thinks of the new proposal, and what the lawyers think? I am getting the sense that it seems like a big step forward, but there are still some significant problems, especially around the "morality clause"?

I guess what I'm asking is: are we seeing progress?

 

[Voadam]

But the point remains that Kobold Press has all of these things as a basis to work off of that are their IP, which WOTC doesn't own, and if there is a potential for derivative claims, they have plenty of precedent to fall back on, at the least. Again, I'm simply saying that have a bank of both player and GM rules options to start from that few other rivals have.

They have a huge bank that is built off the SRDs. Figuring out what can be used from that bank or not safely outside of the OGL is a bit of a fraught exercise.

I don't know if it would be easier to come up with a new 5e core rules compatible race from scratch than to figure out the safe lines for using a Darakhul ghoul PC race that is derived significantly from OGL SRD material.

If I was Kobold I would want to be sure that I was set on where the lines are before publishing outside of the OGL.