More Information:

https://youtu.be/WXTdoUW8nxo

https://youtu.be/lGbcHyQ2v3c

What is the Open Gaming License?

The Open Gaming License (OGL) is a legal framework that allows creators to use the rules and ideas of roleplaying games in their own works. Initially released in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast, it has become a pillar of the tabletop gaming industry, fueling the popularity and accessibility of games such as Pathfinder, 13th Age, and Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.

The OGL has done more to foster creativity and innovation in the tabletop gaming ecosystem than any other element. By allowing creators to use and collaboratively build upon the core mechanics and concepts of existing games, the OGL has created a wide variety of new games and game products, ranging from minor independent releases to large, commercially successful titles.

End of an Open Era

However, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has announced an updated OGL (version 1.1)—an attempt to dismantle the entire RPG industry. This new license intends to completely revoke the old OGL, a perpetual license designed by WotC themselves to be irrevocable.

Nothing about this new license is “open.” It chokes the vibrant community that has flourished under the original license. No matter the creator, it locks everyone into a new contract that restricts their work, makes it mandatory to report their projects and revenues to Wizards of the Coast, and gives WotC the legal right to reproduce and resell creators’ content without permission or compensation. The new license can also be modified with worse terms or terminated at any time without any recompense by creators.

For the largest creators in the industry, WotC is imposing an impossible tax of 25%—based on their total sales above $750K, not profit. This is anti-competitive, monopolistic behavior designed to crush small businesses that collectively employ hundreds of designers, writers, and artists. Under this tax, it becomes impossible for creators to put books on game stores’ shelves or run Kickstarters for large audiences. Even though this only affects some companies in the space, those targeted are still tiny compared to Wizards of the Coast, which made $1.3 billion in 2021.

On top of that, games such as Pathfinder 1E and 2E, 13th Age, Fudge, and Traveller—which use the 1.0 OGL as the backbone of their existence—will need to cease sales of upcoming products or give WotC 25% of their revenue to stay in compliance with the new license.

Furthermore, under the new license, virtual tabletops (VTTs) cannot operate. They can no longer support OGL systems, and creators can no longer release modules and adventures on popular digital platforms such as Foundry, Alchemy, or Shard.

If this new license gains wide adoption, the tabletop landscape will fracture and lose its biggest onboarding mechanisms, shuttering the small businesses that populate your local cons and putting a stop to their creations. Innovation in the gaming industry will evaporate; your favorite games will be trapped in the past, instead of being allowed to migrate to your phone, virtual reality, and beyond. Diversity in the industry will shrink away, as projects from marginalized creators are effectively written out of the future.

We expect Wizards of the Coast to attempt expensive and illegal lawsuits to enforce compliance with their new agreement. Even if they aren’t successful in court, they will irrevocably damage the tabletop industry.

#OpenDnD

#OpenDnD is a rallying cry under which creators and fans have unified to demand that WotC revoke the draconian 1.1 OGL and pledge to support the existing 1.0 OGL into future editions of their games. This isn’t an opportunity to litigate and tinker with a new license, but to return to the values of open gaming. Our community deserves an open future if we want our favorite games to not only survive, but thrive!!

If you are a creator, #DontSign the new agreement. If you love roleplaying games, let WotC know we won't support them without an #OpenDnD!

WotC has shown that they are the dragon on top of the hoard, willing to burn the thriving village if only to get a few more gold pieces. It’s time for us to band together as adventurers to defend our village from the terrible wyrm.

  • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    D&D has voluntarily allowed people to use a lot of the stuff they put out to make new content, for example, you can publish an adventure that uses monsters released under the OGL, and you can even make a new game (Pathfinder, for example) using the stuff released with that license. This was based on the reasoning that the third party content would make the game better and attract more players:

    I think there's a very, very strong business case that can be made for the idea of embracing the ideas at the heart of the Open Source movement and finding a place for them in gaming. [...] One of my fundamental arguments is that by pursuing the Open Gaming concept, Wizards can establish a clear policy on what it will, and will not allow people to do with its copyrighted materials. Just that alone should spur a huge surge in independent content creation that will feed into the D&D network. (Ryan Dancey, former VP of WotC)

    WotC acquired D&D from TSR when they went bankrupt, and Dancey blamed that on TSR's aggressive enforcement of copyright and opposition to third party content, which he said alienated fans, so for 3rd edition they created this license that would give people free reign to use (some) of their content however they wanted, and it was a success. D&D abandoned this approach in the next (4th) edition which went over poorly and drove a lot of players to Pathfinder as an alternative. They returned to the OGL for 5th, which has seen an incredible surge in popularity, driven in a large part by things like Critical Role, a show where professional voice actors play D&D, which they can do without infringing on the copyright because of the OGL.

    Now, with 6th edition (One D&D) they're trying to not just abandon the Open Gaming approach for new content like they did with 4th, but actually change the terms of the license that the old content was released under, forcing everyone who makes money off of that content to pay them royalties. Their case is legally shaky, but they can afford better lawyers than the smaller publishers, and they think that they've got a large enough share of the market that they can throw their weight around and people won't leave for other systems. They probably think they can shut down competitors like Pathfinder that use the OGL this way, but Pathfinder has evolved to be mostly it's own thing, so they're not really dependent on it any more. And as the history of D&D has shown, tabletop roleplayers are willing and able to jump ship and learn a new system, although the audience is larger now than it has been in the past.

    People are pissed because they're not just taking the game in a direction they don't like, they're actually trying to go back and reclaim content that they've already released as open source, and make everyone who created content on the assumption that it was open source start paying them royalties.

    • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Thanks, I wasn't sure how the ecosystem worked. This was a good explanation.