D&D General WotC's Dan Ayoub talks OGL mistakes--"we're recovering from loud public missteps"

In an interview with Wargamer, Dan Ayoub--head of Dungeons & Dragons at Wizards of the Coast--talked about the trust the company lost when it tried to rescind the Open Gaming License back in 2023. Ayoub took over at WotC in 2025, two years after the crisis, and said of the events "But I don't want to skirt the focus of your question. It was a rug pull, right? A lot of people and businesses were built up around a specific thing. Trust was given to the brand, and people rightly felt the rug was pulled from under them. In some cases, it's caused damage we are still trying to fix today."

He also spoke about D&D's new franchise model, reconnecting with classic D&D creators like Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Bob Salvatore and Luke Gygax, and bringing on new partners. Check out the interview here.

 

[Azzy]

Trusting corporations means trusting their safety, trusting their use of your privacy, trusting their desires to not destroy the neighborhood, trusting their ability to not destroy your friends.

I do not trust any corporation to do any of those things without an external force that forces regulations upon it. Just look at history.

 

[Maxperson]

Suggestions about things that would be nice aren't allowed, or discussion of what we think the steps they have taken. Apparently this thread (like all threads that talk about WOTC as a company) can only be used to complain about something associated to the OGL fiasco because we don't all know what the issues are and we must beat the dead horse yet again. Sorry.

We get it. Company integrity doesn't matter to you. And as for the bold, I call them out on the good stuff they do as well as the bad stuff.

This thread is getting all this flak, because Ayoub is talking about the OGL and the lack of trust it engendered, and saying he wants to earn that trust back. Mocking people for bring up that the older editions were not being placed into CC as promised(as a direct response to the OGL Fiasco) is kinda bogus.

 

[jayoungr]

Yes, all kinds of Gen X specific Nostalgia bait!

It could be argued that D&D 5E itself started as Gen X specific nostalgia bait. But it grew to be something more.

 

[AlViking]

We get it. Company integrity doesn't matter to you. And as for the bold, I call them out on the good stuff they do as well as the bad stuff.

This thread is getting all this flak, because Ayoub is talking about the OGL and the lack of trust it engendered, and saying he wants to earn that trust back. Mocking people for bring up that the older editions were not being placed into CC as promised(as a direct response to the OGL Fiasco) is kinda bogus.

Every single thread that touches on what WOTC does as a company or what they are planning on doing gets derailed onto this topic. He also discussed some other things that I think might be interesting to discuss but as always it gets buried.

 

[dave2008]

Then you should never eat any food you didn't grow your self.

Trusting corporations means trusting their safety, trusting their use of your privacy, trusting their desires to not destroy the neighborhood, trusting their ability to not destroy your friends.

If you can't trust corporations then you cannot exist.

No, I disagree. I don't have to trust a corporation to buy their food (though I do go to the farmer's market a lot) or their products. I don't trust the corporation of Chipotle, but I eat a lot of their food. There is a disconnect between trusting a corporation and consuming the products they make.

 

[ART!]

"and yet you are a part of society"

 

[mamba]

Every single thread that touches on what WOTC does as a company or what they are planning on doing gets derailed onto this topic. He also discussed some other things that I think might be interesting to discuss but as always it gets buried.

that just goes to show that he still has some work ahead of him

 

[bedir than]

No, I disagree. I don't have to trust a corporation to buy their food (though I do go to the farmer's market a lot) or their products. I don't trust the corporation of Chipotle, but I eat a lot of their food. There is a disconnect between trusting a corporation and consuming the products they make.

you definitely shouldn't eat food from a corporation you don't trust

They'll give you salmonella for example.

 

[Maxperson]

Every single thread that touches on what WOTC does as a company or what they are planning on doing gets derailed onto this topic.

What happens in other threads doesn't affect this thread. In this thread it is very relevant and on topic.

It also doesn't make much sense to my why they haven't done it by now. To say the cost to them is minimal is an overstatement. If I found a penny in my couch, that penny would represent a greater percentage of my annual wealth than the cost to stick 3e/3.5e into CC is to their annual wealth. And it would engender good will from a lot of people who have been waiting for them to keep their promise.

He also discussed some other things that I think might be interesting to discuss but as always it gets buried.

Bring those things up. Folks here will respond to those things and you'll have a few conversations going in the thread.

 

[Maxperson]

No, I disagree. I don't have to trust a corporation to buy their food (though I do go to the farmer's market a lot) or their products. I don't trust the corporation of Chipotle, but I eat a lot of their food. There is a disconnect between trusting a corporation and consuming the products they make.

You're both right, really. There are different aspects to corporations and you can trust one aspect, while not trusting others.

I wouldn't trust Chipotle not to try and price gouge me if they could get away with it. I do have to trust that they aren't giving me food that's going to kill me or make me sick. If I couldn't trust that, I wouldn't buy from them. Right now I can't trust that heads of lettuce don't have parasites in them, so I haven't purchased one in quite a while. When the outbreak has been over for a while, I'll have my trust back and begin to buy again.