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'.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The stock is higher than it was a month ago.

That was do to broader trends in the economy, this is due to bad choices.

 

[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.

EDIT: Okay, so I think Section 5(b) deals with this, but it seems like it's basically affirming that you can strike deals to let other people use your work and/or vice versa, i.e. make independent agreements with other publishers. It doesn't look like any sort of universal provision for sharing work the way Open Game Content was (presuming I'm reading this correctly).

Yeah, it's placed an extra step now for 3PPs opening up their work f they're using 1.2, in that they have to choose a license to use, add that at the back in addition to 1.2, and somehow specify which bits are included and which are not (which means it needs to be a license that can actually work that way, making the CC licenses unusable for that purpose from what I can see, unless you publish your own separate SRD under CC.)

By 2030, we'll be seeing RPGs where the entire rear half of the book is license text and a thorough explanation of which bits of the book are covered under which license.

 

[mamba]

The VTT agreement is a separate thing and I am fine with that. I looked over it and I didn't particularly like it, but I am fine with it being outside the OGL. Let it develop separately IMO.

I think it is too restrictive and I would want it improved before I sign off on the OGL

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I think this is pretty ridiculous. Arbitration is expensive for one and you don’t see brands like LoTR or Marvel offering arbitration to decide things when they don’t like how their licensees use their brand.

Marvel and LotR don't do open gaming liciences.

 

[kjdavies]

But 1.2 isn't a share alike license and doesn't seem to include provisions for building on others works so I'm not sure how that works.

"Your Content. This is your creative contributions to your works that are not Our Licensed Content or Our Unlicensed Content. This license permits you to combine Your Content with Our Licensed Content and distribute the resulting works as authorized by this license."

sounds like it does that to me, otherwise it is just restating

"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."

This does allow me to distribute content that I add with content WotC licensed to me. I don't see that it says anything about my licensing that result to others, nor does it say anything about using content from others.

Both of which are covered in another section... but not right here.

 

[p_johnston]

Yeah as much as I care about the subject personally D&D is not Hasbros number one priority. That would be MTG by a country mile. D&D simply isn't as profitable as a lot of other things that Hasbro is doing. They may be looking to change that but as of now it's less a matter of "this is costing us so much money" then "Wow this is messing up a lot of future plans and might actually start blowing back onto MTG if it explodes hard enough."

 

[mamba]

But the VTT policy is not part of that license. It is a seperate document!

good point

 

[kjdavies]

For me it is looking a lot better, but I would really want 2 more changes:

• Prior SRDs also added to the license (3.5 etc)​
• The clause about harassment / obscene etc content should go to some third party, or at least have some ability to appeal to a third party rather than solely under WOTC's control​

I'd rather they didn't integrate prior SRDs into this license, mostly because it looks like it gets awfully gnarly to use open content from other publishers (which was one of the major drivers behind the OGL in the first place, having a shared ecosystem of game content).

 

[Aspirinsmurf]

• WOTC proposes to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a, in contravention of the document's clear intent and in defiance of WOTC's previous assurances that the OGL 1.0a could not be revoked. This is treacherous and unlawful (i.e., chaotic evil). Do not attempt to unilaterally revoke rights that were granted perpetually and which have been relied on by an entire industry.

Even their negotiating tactics here look illegal to me.

Misrepresentation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Justice and Rule]

Given that WoTC has already had a long track record of increased representation in its products, and given that the majority of complaints regarding WoTC on-line come from people that are trying to make the game less inclusive ....

I mean, given that they've had multiple scandals regarding both employees and tournament behavior (in MtG) around racism in recent years, putting a bit more inclusivity into their art is not necessarily going to convince people. They still make obvious mistakes like the Hadozee stuff, which...

Yeah. And they immediately changed that. Remember?

...That they made the mistake in the first place is something of an indictment on its own. If you had to have other people notice how problematic that stuff was, why should we trust your judgment when it comes to stopping stuff like hate-speech?

Simply put, it's hard to trust that they care so much about that topic that they'll blow up the OGL for it when they're letting racist monkey-people somehow escape the drawing table.

Or, maybe they are engaged in litigation with nuTSR, and they still have to deal with people that complain that their inclusivity is “political.”

I mean, they forced the people who put out "Eat the Rich" on DriveThruRPG to change things because they felt using "anti-capitalist" was "political". Trying to put this all on LaNasa, if that is what they are trying to do, is just disingenuous (especially given that his case does not involve the OGL at all) given their previous actions.

Honestly, if they want to justify sweeping changes to the OGL under the idea that they want to defend the license against racism and hate-speech, they could probably show us that they won't make any boneheaded racist mistakes for a few years just to show that they are actually correcting their own problems rather than just rainbow-washing things.