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.

 

[FormerLurker]

This all seems incredibly reasonable and fair. I don't want people making racist and offensive games. They're making the new license irrevocable. They're making the core rules creative commons, so they can never go away and WotC can't every touch them.

I can't wait to see how the community and YouTubers attack this....

 

[J.Quondam]

But now having read the draft, the Owlbear, with a capital O, is very prominent.

At least this was over something important.

Oh yes it was! It was pretty obvious. I mean, the "What is an Owlbear" is the latest feature article on dnd.wizards.com
They want that mascot bad. It's so much better than the dumb old beholder.

I'm about 114% certain that if owlbear had not been slipped into the SRD 20 years ago, this whole mess would have been avoided.

 

[Michael Linke]

Looks like we crashed https://www.dndbeyond.com/, btw.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Add all your previously published SRDs and Open Gaming Content to this and I'll cede the naughty word owlbears, WizBro.

Or just issue the 3e, 3.5 and Modern SRDs with the stuff you now retroactively claim as product identity.

We promise you can keep all the ideas you legit stole to make D&D. All your balors, your halflings, the Ultraman monsters, Lovecraft's sad dandruff, your magic system literally named after the guy you cribbed it from... all of it.

In fact, we'll throw in Monopoly. We won't talk about how you stole that from someone who stole it anymore.

 

[blakesha]

Sooo. Same situation as yesterday if you want to make D&D content. Under CC: Can't make subclasses as the classes themselves aren't covered, can't make settings that mention the licensed content (even the content name). So no adventures that say have a monster name in encounters, or item names for treasure. So basically the majority of 3pp are screwed unless they sign the OGL and all its terms. The CC release is a smokescreen unless you are going to create your own D&D equivalent system. It may not even cover the likes of Paizo etc in its current form

 

[Vaalingrade]

What is it you could have done with 1.0a before which you cannot do with this combination of CC and 1.2, other than hateful content, which you wanted to do with it?

3e, 3.5e and Modern SRD-based materials.

And avoiding being called 'harmful' and knifed in the back should someone for whom being born a certain way is 'harmful' get the reigns at Hasbro.

 

[Michael Linke]

Or just issue the 3e, 3.5 and Modern SRDs with the stuff you now retroactively claim as product identity.

We promise you can keep all the ideas you legit stole to make D&D. All your balors, your halflings, the Ultraman monsters, Lovecraft's sad dandruff, your magic system literally named after the guy you cribbed it from... all of it.

In fact, we'll throw in Monopoly. We won't talk about how you stole that from someone who stole it anymore.

But they specified the OGL 1.0a is still valid for products that DON'T use a WotC SRD. So you could still release your work under OGL 1.0a, using the Pathfinder SRD, as far as I can understand. Am I reading that wrong?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

This doesn't actually seem that bad, but I fear it is too little too late for a lot of 3PP. I think WotC let the cat out of the bag. If they had started with this after the initial leak then things may have been different. I think there are too many ways for them to strip OGL 1.2 from you as well.

Indeed. I think a lot of people in the D&D community, publishers and otherwise, reevaluated their relationship with D&D and WotC the last couple weeks, and have decided to move on.

But it is in that particular milieu that I think the creative commons release of the core mechanics is so awesome. All the multitude of 5e clones, semi-clones, and more distantly related games that were bound to spring up as people meditated upon their exits from official D&D have a much clearer path forward. And one that can more easily preserve some level of inter-compatibility.

 

[Scribe]

But they specified the OGL 1.0a is still valid for products that DON'T use a WotC SRD. So you could still release your work under OGL 1.0a, using the Pathfinder SRD, as far as I can understand. Am I reading that wrong?

Much of that SRD, may be in fault, having used the 3.5 SRD though? Not sure.

 

[Michael Linke]

Sooo. Same situation as yesterday if you want to make D&D content. Under CC: Can't make subclasses as the classes themselves aren't covered, can't make settings that mention the licensed content (even the content name). So no adventures that say have a monster name in encounters, or item names for treasure. So basically the majority of 3pp are screwed unless they sign the OGL and all its terms. The CC release is a smokescreen unless you are going to create your own D&D equivalent system. It may not even cover the likes of Paizo etc in its current form

If a 3pp is putting out a module that just tells me to look up monsters in the MM, and treasures in the DMG, I'm probably not buying that product anyway. I would much rather buy an adventure that has unique monsters and magic items in sidebars, or in the appendix. The fact that this means such products will have to EXCLUSIVELY use new content, rather than mix MM references and new content isn't a huge problem for me.

Edit: a way to support modules that don't exclusively use custom monsters, while still hewing to the CC subset of the rules would be to tell the DM to make their own encounter table with a set number of their favorite CR1 monsters, or something like that, and insert a result from that table where indicated. Special, original, monsters could have their stats in the product.