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'.

 

[rcade]

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.

If we were talking about a closed license, you'd have a point. Closed licenses often have terms like forced arbitration.

The OGL is an open license. Hasbro/WOTC is talking like they are keeping it open while including terms that make it closed. This whole situation is a trojan horse. They want to be treated like Marvel offering a closed license to a company while retaining the power to take that license away at any time. They don't want to be treated like a company that offered limited content (and no brands) under an open license they promised would be in place forever.

 

[Matt Thomason]

I believe this is an oversight and not by design, why else have section 5 in 1.2

"You can make your Content available under any terms you choose but you may not change the terms under which we make Our Licensed Content available."

Any terms - but not under 1.2 itself, as there's so much WotC and SRD-specific text in it. You could go through and edit it into your own, similar, version, yes, stripping out all kinds of inapplicable bits here and there and changing references. You certainly couldn't just pile up multiple sources in the one copy of the license like you can with 1.0a.

 

[Mercurius]

Since Kobold Press is a corporation and Wolfgang Baur is a person, I don't see how Baur telling a joke could impact the use of this new non-open OGL.

I suspect this hypothetical is moot because neither Kobold Press nor any other major publishers are going to jump into Hasbro's shiny new locked trunk.

Well again, the language is nebulous and includes "conduct." That presumably means anything from a 10-year old tweet that someone at WotC finds problematic to a tipsy remark at GenCon to...well, whatever WotC wants it to mean.

But yeah, if I'm Kobold--or any other publisher--I'd be very hesitant to sign on to that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It really looks like the big sticking point here is the revocation of 1.0a - it's not something they're budging on, and it's something that is critical for 3PPs who already use it. Revoking the existing SRDs is absolutely a problem. Open content doesn't go back into the bottle, that's not how "open" works. You can put more in, but you can't take out what's already there. It's in the wild, and an attempt to drag it back is absolutely a breach of trust and is reason enough to go with something like ORC. Revoking the 1.0a license for games that aren't even using the SRD is likewise a non-starter. 1.0a needs to remain what it is, to be used by whoever wants to use it, forever.

That's one of the big goals of 1.0a - to ensure that no one company controls D&D, so that it can be played forever by anyone for free, using the SRDs.

And as much as I may believe WotC when they say they think they need to do this, I also think they need to give it up. That's not control they get to have. They can keep the DMsGuild where they police the products entirely, and they can do something like the d20 License if they want people to put a sticker on their product and not be racists (if you embarass them, they get to take away your sticker), but the OGL is not the correct mechanism for protecting WotC's brand.

If they don't want to play by those rules anymore, 6e or 5.5e don't have to use the OGL, but "de-authorization" is the critical issue, and as long as WotC keeps that, I don't see them salvaging this situation.

It's not a "big deal." It's boilerplate.

Just to say, "boilerplate" doesn't mean "good."

Yeah, it's standard when we're talking about those lopsided one-way contracts websites have you sign to make a profile or whatever.

The OGL is not a standard corporate contract, and "boilerplate" should not be assumed to be OK. It's the foundation to an entire industry. Putting language in there that gives WotC power over your products and your legal recourses means that serious businesses don't use it. Which makes it useless as the foundation for an industry.

Boilerplate ain't gonna cut it here, and it's naive at best for WotC to think that it would.

 

[mamba]

Sure, but that's my point. This isn't a deal, this is a placeholder. It doesn't give you anything they can't take away whenever they want, while you basically lose 1.0a by taking it. It's a sucker's bet, a rug pull for the RPG market.

that is why I will be providing feedback about what needs improving. That seems to be the whole point of this exercise

 

[UngeheuerLich]

They're not going to use this to take down any material that give Goblins ability score penalties, or make orcs evil. This is literally about the racist crap LaNasa's been trying to peddle with WotC-owned IP.

There are a lot of complicated issues that reasonable people can disagree about. There is nothing to disagree about with NuStar-Frontiers.

Literally don't be actively, forcefully hateful with someone else's toys and you have nothing to worry about.

Even if they overstep, they've already proven they can be cowed by public pressure.

Based policy, honestly.

It has already cost them 600mio dollars of theoretical money. At least it is the shareholders's theoretical money...

but LaNasa can now tell himself that it was he who caused the dip.

I am still thinking about buying in now. It won't get a lot cheaper to buy yourself in. And hopefully it will bumb up. The new draft seems hopeful even with the few points that need correction.

I mean:
who will get a lot of track by rambling against a clause that disallows hatespeech.
And a restriction to VTT will probably increase the value of their own.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You may have noticed one or more of those outlets applying their rules in inconsistent and ethically dubious ways.

They can afford it. WotC will always be judged on their action by too many random forum guys.

 

[Aspirinsmurf]

This isn't a good faith negotiation in any way. It's a "playtest", which is to say a smokescreen for their illegal schemes. I don't get why we should even bother. It seems designed to funnel the outrage away from public forums and to divide and conquer.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This isn't a good faith negotiation in any way. It's a "playtest", which is to say a smokescreen for their illegal schemes. I don't get why we should even bother. It seems designed to funnel the outrage away from public forums and to divide and conquer.

This sounds like the piece of information gotten from the "leak" which was probably at least partially fake. So it has fullfilled its goal...

 

[overgeeked]

It seems designed to funnel the outrage away from public forums and to divide and conquer.

And it’s working. Unfortunately.