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.

 

[Enrahim2]

What this really tells us is that WotC should be using a closed licence, not an open one.

Not quite. The traditional point of an open highly post controlled licence like this is that it allow for content created by hobbyist, and a small commercial and blooming undergrowth. The thing ut do not support is the trees. For the real commercial actors closed license is generally accepted to be the way to go.

The trouble here is that the original OGL supported both kind of activities. A single "community" license or a single closed license scheme just don't cut it.

Wizards possibly lethal mistake was that they were presenting the foundations of their community with a license offer drawing on grassroot licensing philosophy, rather than business to business licensing philosophy. Yes, the NDA offer should absolutely have been a closed licensing scheme if they were planning to get rid of the open source style licensing scheme.

 

[eyeheartawk]

I'm not actually sure that they care about this as much as they claim. If they did they'd realize that releasing rules under a CC-BY puts them exactly in the same "predicament" image wise as releasing rules under the OGL. The OGL requires attribution, so Wizards name is on every product that uses it. But CC-BY also requires attribution and so Wizards name will also have to be on all of those products with no way for them to tell people to stop. There's no real difference.

If their name was a concern like they're saying, they would have thought about that and suggested a CC0 license for those rules instead of a CC-BY. Which allows them to completely wash their hands of anyone using the rules because CC0 does not require attribution and they can claim that those similarities are just because of a common RPG heritage that we all share (which is actually true, but sometimes I think Wizards thinks they own more of that heritage than they actually do).

Good observation, yeah, it really undercuts their whole justification with just this fact alone.

At the very least damning reading it just underlines that they don't expect anybody to use the gutted SRD released in the Creative Commons.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not quite. The traditional point of an open highly post controlled licence like this is that it allow for content created by hobbyist, and a small commercial and blooming undergrowth. The thing ut do not support is the trees. For the real commercial actors closed license is generally accepted to be the way to go.

The trouble here is that the original OGL supported both kind of activities. A single "community" license or a single closed license scheme just don't cut it.

Wizards possibly lethal mistake was that they were presenting the foundations of their community with a license offer drawing on grassroot licensing philosophy, rather than business to business licensing philosophy. Yes, the NDA offer should absolutely have been a closed licensing scheme if they were planning to get rid of the open source style licensing scheme.

The trouble is they just can't have the level of protection/control they seem to want with an open licence that anyone can sign up to and start publishing with.

I think the real solution is just dead simple. Leave the OGL 1.0a alone, but create another, much stricter licence, which gives the badge/seal of approval and maybe some kind of access to being sold on Beyond. Then say anything without the badge isn't WotC approved. I dunno why they're so resistant to that, it achieves all their apparent/stated goals.

 

[eyeheartawk]

The trouble is they just can't have the level of protection/control they seem to want with an open licence that anyone can sign up to and start publishing with.

I think the real solution is just dead simple. Leave the OGL 1.0a alone, but create another, much stricter licence, which gives the badge/seal of approval and maybe some kind of access to being sold on Beyond. Then say anything without the badge isn't WotC approved. I dunno why they're so resistant to that, it achieves all their apparent/stated goals.

It makes sense, unless you remember that they want to handicap the digital competition and claw back previously granted IP. You can't get around either unless you rugpull OGL 1.0a.

 

[Enrahim2]

The trouble is they just can't have the level of protection/control they seem to want with an open licence that anyone can sign up to and start publishing with.

From my understanding they have demonstrated that they can. The DMGuild license is as far as I understand open for all, with some pretty heavy controls. Also computer games enabling user generated content tend to have quite heavy control clauses.

So I wonder why you seem to give this general statement?

This is why I think the key issue here is the (highly morraly despicable) attempt of transitioning away from a well used "open source" licensing scheme. In this context only presenting a traditional "open" controled community license don't cut it. Neither would only a closed licensing scheme. I can imagine a combination might have avoided this disaster though.

 

[mamba]

Then it doesn't matter that it's not in the CC and you can emulate 5e perfectly. All this haranguing about the OGL is a waste of time.

That is not what I said, if you read the whole post. They own none of these concepts, but they do probably (never been in front of a judge, so no one knows) own parts of their expression (the other being more mechanical).

That is why I said a fireball doing 8d6 damage might in the aggregate, ie if you take a lot more than just that, amount to enough to violate their copyright. Just like two songs sharing one note do not violate copyright, but the more similar they get, you eventually cross a line (probably, much better defined for music than TRRPGs…)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The DMGuild license is as far as I understand open for all, with some pretty heavy controls.

That's a fundamentally different approach, though. In particular, it offers a ton more than the SRD, and it requires you to send your module to them to pre-check before they let it through. I'm sure plenty of stuff is outright rejected.

That's part of the problem here - you can't be serious about reputational harm and hateful content and so on if you just wait for the damage to occur and act after the fact, which is what WotC is proposing to do here.

Also computer games enabling user generated content tend to have quite heavy control clauses.

User-generated content is covered by the Fan Content Policy, it has literally nothing to do with anything we're discussing here.

 

[mamba]

So the ogl is just a promise WotC won't sue you for the things you could already do legally. Not much of a contract, I guess.

it offers both sides protection. The 3pp that they won’t get sued and WotC that they do not have to find out that most of their stuff is not protected by copyright, so it can stay in this undefined zone where everyone simply pretends it is theirs for as long as 1.0a exists.

Anyway, good luck with your CC 5e clones everyone.

looking forward to them

 

[Dausuul]

No, it's much more firm than a promise. It's a legal bulwark, real protection versus the possibility that WotC can get you into a lawsuit that they can basically use their cash flow to bully you in.

Indeed. From the discussions among the lawyers on this site, it sounded like defending a suit over the OGL would be much simpler than defending a suit over copyright infringement. (For example, apparently discovery -- one of the nastiest, hairiest parts of the process -- would be essentially nonexistent. Note that I am not a lawyer, I'm just paraphrasing what I heard the lawyers say, they could be wrong or I could have misunderstood them, do not bet your business on forum posts by Internet randos.)

I dunno, I think it's going to end up getting tested anyways. But we'll see.

Keep in mind that it only gets tested if Wizards decides to file suit against someone. If all the big 3PPs extricate themselves from the OGL, leaving only a handful of little fish still relying on it, I can't see why Wizards would bother. At best, they get chump change in damages; at worst, the ruling goes against them and OGL 1.0a springs back to life; either way, it's another tidal wave of bad publicity and fan outrage.

However, it sounds as if the VTTs are their real targets here. I'm not entirely clear on how the major VTTs incorporate the OGL, but if they can't easily extricate themselves, and Wizards remains bent on their (deeply stupid and self-destructive) strategy for D&D, then we probably will see it tested in court.

 

[Jer]

Anyway, good luck with your CC 5e clones everyone.

I'm actually hopeful that we can get enough into the CC-BY or CC0 license that a full CC SRD could be created and used by everyone not-Wizards as a "lingua franca" for a "Tunnels and Tarasques" F20 framework that can be built upon. I'm hoping that the ORC crowd of companies are thinking of a pooled minimal SRD along those lines that can be reviewed by lawyers and placed under an ORC or CC license (or honestly both) for common usage.