WotC Unveils Draft of New Open Gaming License

As promised earlier this week, WotC has posted the draft OGL v.1.2 license for the community to see.

A survey will be going live tomorrow for feedback.

Starting the OGL ‘Playtest’

In this article, you can review a draft of OGL 1.2, submit feedback via survey, and learn about a Creative Commons license that puts D&D's core mech...

www.dndbeyond.com

The current iteration contains clauses which prohibit offensive content, applies only to TTRPG books and PDFs, no right of ownership going to WotC, and an optional creator content badge for your products.

One important element, the ability for WotC to change the license at-will has also been addressed, allowing the only two specific changes they can make -- how you cite WotC in your work, and contact details.

This license will be irrevocable.

The OGL v1.0a is still being 'de-authorized'.

 

[Jer]

Is this the 5.1 SRD they reference?

https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SRD-OGL_V5.1.pdf

It seems to be.

Looking at what they're putting in Creative Commons, the pages they're putting into the Creative Commons are arguably not things that would be protected by copyright anyway.

The draft of the 1.2 OGL only covers the 5.1 SRD - it says nothing about the 3.x SRD which many games were built on and are still using.

It's still a deauthorization of the 1.0a OGL, which will cause shockwaves through existing products.

It's more of a safe harbor than they were offering before, but it still shows that they don't seem to understand the real consequences of deauthorizing the original OGL document.

 

[overgeeked]

So...pre-existing stuff is fine, but no new 1.0??

Is that right?

Yes. So it's still a non-starter and they're tripling down on the "it's to prevent discrimination" lie.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

yeah, i'm...very confused. the actual license here largely seems ok from my layman reading of it? i just...don't see the point of not just keeping 1.0(a) at this point. sunk cost fallacy, much?

also yeah i don't trust the hateful content provision. i feel like they're fighting to keep that in as their last ditch effort to control what people publish.

 

[Scribe]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/attachments/39j2li89/OGL1.2_DraftForDiscussionPurpose.pdf

Right, but the SRD they call out, that is going in the CC, is not in there.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So...pre-existing stuff is fine, but no new 1.0??

Is that right?

Essentially. Keep selling PF1/LevelUp/OSR stuff, but...nothing new?

Pre-existing stuff? Fine.

Stuff using mechanics (CC stuff)? Fine.*

New stuff? Fine, but it has to use 1.2.


*Arguably, this was always fine no matter what. But this provides certainty. Certainty is always good.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Then they make dubious and overreaching claims on things that they probably cannot copyright and are sweeping into OGL 1.2 which has various poison pills

Sorry, genuinely curious besides no 3E SRD what else would a 3PP consider a poison pill? I don't prefer it to what we have now but I wouldn't mind a more thorough breakdown.

 

[Sacrosanct]

So...pre-existing stuff is fine, but no new 1.0??

Is that right?

Essentially. Keep selling PF1/LevelUp/OSR stuff, but...nothing new?

But under the new license, you can keep doing exactly the same thing you did under 1.0 in the same way, except now you have to put the badge on and don't make a negro race inferior to a white race (ahem, Justin and Dave). For 99.9% of publishers, nothing will change with how we were doing it before, except putting the badge on the work.

 

[Scribe]

It seems to be.

Looking at what they're putting in Creative Commons, the pages they're putting into the Creative Commons are arguably not things that would be protected by copyright anyway.

The draft of the 1.2 OGL only covers the 5.1 SRD - it says nothing about the 3.x SRD which many games were built on and are still using.

It's still a deauthorization of the 1.0a OGL, which will cause shockwaves through existing products.

It's more of a safe harbor than they were offering before, but it still shows that they don't seem to understand the real consequences of deauthorizing the original OGL document.

OK, thats my reading.

I get it for the 5e folks, this is still a mess, but I'm looking at the 3.5/PF1 stuff more so and wondering how thats supposed to function.

 

[overgeeked]

Right, but the SRD they call out, that is going in the CC, is not in there.

Sorry. Reading the doc and the thread and responding seems to be at least one too many things for me at once.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I mean, depending on what they mean by the core content exactly, callooh callay oh frabjous day!

But, shedding some darkness on that upbeat point, I would say that the particular examples of "Magic Missile" and "Owlbear" as things that belong to them are a little problematic. Owlbear is a straightforward chimera of bear and owl with a basic name. Magic Missile is an unerring missile of magic. I almost used the latter as an example a few days ago of something they would have a somewhat dubious claim to. In both cases I think you could safely use the thing under a different name, or the name for a different thing, and that it is only both having your chimera of owl and bear called "owlbear" that puts it in the danger zone.

 

[Matt Thomason]

So...pre-existing stuff is fine, but no new 1.0??

Is that right?

Essentially. Keep selling PF1/LevelUp/OSR stuff, but...nothing new?

That appears to be what they're saying.
Legally, I don't think they can actually stop third parties from offering 1.0a licenses, they can just stop offering them themselves. So, if everyone starts using the Mongoose pocket handbooks under 1.0a...

 

[Scribe]

But under the new license, you can keep doing exactly the same thing you did under 1.0 in the same way...For 99.9% of publishers, nothing will change with how we were doing it before, except putting the badge on the work.

But can you do this in 3.5/PF1/OSR?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Looking at the text of the new license, there is no reason to keep using 1.0 unless you want to put hate speech in your product. That's the only real change there.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Sorry, genuinely curious besides no 3E SRD what else would a 3PP consider a poison pill? I don't prefer it to what we have now but I wouldn't mind a more thorough breakdown.

The clearest poison pill is the morality clause which they get to define at will. If they allowed the use of their brands and trademarks (which 1.0a does not), then I can buy that. Otherwise something is beating them and they find a forum post 10 years old and pull the product.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Looking at the text of the new license, there is no reason to keep using 1.0 unless you want to put hate speech in your product. That's the only real change there.

Or you know, you use the 3.5 SRD.

 

[Scribe]

Apologies, as I must hit and run, but to make my question clear.

Does this at all clarify anything regarding 3.5/PF1/OSR, or is it 5e facing only?

 

[Sacrosanct]

But can you do this in 3.5/PF1/OSR?

The OSR (and clones) were all made with the OGL and SRD but being a bit creative with it to make it "AD&D-esque". There was never an SRD for TSR era D&D. You can still do what with the new license. As far as I can tell, the only difference is you can't put hate speech in it going forward.

 

[Alzrius]

Looking at you NuTSR.

Not so much, since insofar as I know, nuTSR didn't try to publish anything under the OGL.

That's not a lie. That's just their truth that people don't want to hear.

Their truth is based on a fear that, to my mind, has little to justify it; call it "truthiness" perhaps.

As I noted above, nuTSR didn't try to publish anything under the OGL (that I'm aware of). In the last twenty-three years, the most infamous OGL product, in terms of content that falls outside of what's broadly considered to be "acceptable" is almost certainly The Book of Erotic Fantasy. That's a book from 2003, meaning that in twenty years, there has yet to be any particular work which has somehow brought any sort of notoriety to the tabletop RPG field as a whole. Certainly, there are worse products out there, but they've garnered almost no attention whatsoever, having been released and almost immediately purged from our sub-cultural consciousness.

WotC might be saying that this is a red line, but history suggests that the level of concern they have for this is unwarranted. Between that, and how much trust they've already lost, and that this isn't (as you correctly noted) an open license, this isn't something I personally feel comfortable compromising on, and I hope the rest of the tabletop RPG community doesn't either.

 

[mhd]

So if the VTT rules disallow stuff that doesn't work at a real table, I guess that means torches and maybe dynamic lighting are out, too?

 

[overgeeked]

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.

So no change. They're still insisting it's about discrimination and they are the sole arbiters of what you get to publish as a result.