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'.

 

[Slander]

Based on the following:

The Open Game License 1.0a is no longer an authorized license. This means that you may not use that version of the OGL, or any prior version, to publish SRD content after (effective date)
...
Content Covered
(i) Our Licensed Content. This license covers any content in the SRD 5.1 (or any subsequent version of
the SRD we release under this license) that is not licensed to you under Creative Commons. You
may use that content in your own works on the terms of this license."
...
Our Unlicensed Content. Only Our Licensed Content is licensed under this license. Any other
content we release or have released is not licensed to you under this license.

I understand Wizard's intends to clearly de-authorize the OGL 1.0a for any 5E-based content. I understand whether they can do that for 5E content or not is likely only to be determined by a judge. I understand that this may still be an important sticking point for some.

But it would seem to me like publishing OGL new content from the 3.5 SRD (or any other OGL 1.0a content not derived from the 5.1 SRD) would be completely unaffected. The only trigger for coming under the OGL 1.2 seems to be using 5.1 SRD content. So if you never trigger the OGL 1.2, the de-authorization clause wouldn't kick in.

Is that a fair reading? Or is that just as legally murky as the de-authorization question?

 

[eyeheartawk]

Is this true, they took away all of 3.5 SRD and only left 15% of the 5.1SRD?

 

[Cadence]

Yeah, changing the name of magic missile is a very small issue, IMO.

I imagine just picking off some of them for ones game is fine. But I can imagine them coming out guns blazing against a full clone with a lawyerly version of:

"This large set of spells, species, monsters, and classes define the unique stories of the worlds of Oerth and Faerun and all of their associated literature as presented in hundreds of novels. The combination of them distinguishes the default stories of Dungeons and Dragons from various fantasy video game, film, and literary franchises. Their changing the names of some of them but keeping the full set largely intact is not just using game mechanics, it is using WotC stories and is a violation of WotC copyright."

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Given how much of D&D, even today, is just "stuff Gary Gygax saw in Bullfinch's Mythology, other people's fiction or a dictionary," a lot of this isn't -- cannot be -- WotC's exclusive property.

If I want to publish a book with an elf, a judge will beat a WotC lawyer to death with Lord of the Rings before they rule that wood and high elves belong to them.

Oh yes. To clarify, everyone wanting to make a 5e clone does not have to avoid having a race named "Elf" a class named "Wizard", a monster named "Zombie", or a spell named "Invisibility". They just have to be distinct from WotC's versions.

 

[Mistwell]

Oh, gee. That's awesome. You can't copyright the core mechanics anyway. So...thanks for nothing.

Owlbears and magic missile are not "quintessentially D&D content". Owlbears were copied whole cloth from a Japanese toy. Magic missiles are such a common trope it would be hard to find the actual origin of it without a research grant.

All three claims you just made are exaggerations. 1) there is a vast array of intellectual property laws which include copyright but include other things like trade dress, trademark, etc.. There have been general claims that mechanics cannot be copyrighted but nobody's positive that it extends to a bundle of a series of rules which together may represent the trade dress of actual copyright of a company. Claiming "you just can't" isn't accurate. You can use a rule here and there, but using all the core rules may, or may not, be a different story and that has yet to be litigated.

2) Owlbear isn't from that toy. A) it barely looks like that toy in 1e and it definitely has no resemblance to today's version and most importantly that toy was NEVER CALLED OWLBEAR, and B) we're talking the trademark and copyrighted material that comes along with the D&D version of that thing.

3) "I'm sure if I could find some reference it wouldn't be original" isn't a good argument. Either find it, or it's what it appears to be which is an original trademark and set of copyright about the concept. Best you could argue, in my opinion, is it's too descriptive to gain IP protection.

 

[Sacrosanct]

False. For MANY reasons.

Among other things, look at 1. (c) (ii)

If you want to publish something under the "O"GL 1.2, it must include some of their content.

In other words, this is in NO WAY an open game license. It's a D&D system license.

if you aren't using anything in the new SRD, why would you bother to use the new OGL?

 

[Matt Thomason]

Reading this over again...am I missing something, or is there nothing in here that allows you to use the content of other third-parties who use this license? (They seem to have scuttled the term "Open Game Content" in favor of "Our Content" and "Your Content," apparently.)

Because looking at this right now, if someone hypothetically makes a really cool product under the OGL v1.2, I can't see any provision where I'd be able to use it in my hypothetical OGL v1.2 product. It looks like you can only use the 5.1 SRD.

Oh, GOOD catch.
This makes it even more important we get a clarification on whether OGL 1.0a can still be used between 3PPs, and is unaffected by WotC's deauthorization of it. Otherwise it's just pulled up the drawbridge for anyone wanting to use content from a 3PP work licensed under 1.0a.

That said, there appears to be zero legal basis for their authorization applying to use of the OGL between other parties. So it's more wanting that in writing to clarify their position than any real worry they could win a court case over it.

 

[Alzrius]

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.

Well that's quite clearly not true.

You might also want to keep using the OGL v1.0a because you're using content that you don't believe is hate speech, but think that WotC might.

Like, say, having a race that assigns static ability modifiers to particular ability scores.

 

[WisdomOfWombats]

I have an issue with „obscene“. This can be used to ban the depiction of same gender couples or same gender kisses from OGL products. „Obscenity laws“ have been/are one of the main avenues to battle LGBTQIA+ people in the past and present. Who guarantees that a future Hasbro/WotC management won‘t use that to again marginalize depictions of LGBTQIA+ persons? I don‘t trust WotC on this, at all.

 

[rknop]

Okay, people smarter than me: why did they go with CC for the "core mechanics"?

So that they could claim that they were being even more open than people asked them to be, and so that they could look like the made a major concession.

Whether or not it's a major concession depends on what really is in those core mechanics. Also, for this to really be a concession, they'd have to release the entire 3.5 SRD under CC.