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.
4th Edition was a janky bloated garbage fire,
no
the rest of this sucks but 4e was actually fine
I guess I hung out in the wrong places when 4e came out, because most of the complaints I heard were that it was "unrealistic" because casters no longer made martials completely redundant.
4e was fine when all the characters are low-level, otherwise the power creep bogs down combat to the point that my party once spent 8 hours on a single fucking encounter in a pregen adventure.
4e had some good ideas but mostly sucked.
taking 25% of revenue is such a galaxy brained move. Who would comply with this
Kobold Press, one of the biggest third party DnD publisher just announced their own system. It's like they wanted to shoot themselves in the foot.
I hope it works out for them, but gosh am I skeptical. Kobold Press is the biggest group Im worried about where I think the chance of this genuinely fucking them is somewhat high
Yeah, but it's not D&D and will never be D&D. It's just another RPG that won't have anyone playing it in 5 years.
D&D players are going to upgrade to the new system for the reason they always do: 1) it's D&D 2) it's what everyone else is playing.
A lot of people switched to Pathfinder rather than 4th (my group did), and before the OGL, TSR went bankrupt aggressively enforcing copyrights and alienating players. They're gambling on either being able to shut down the competition with lawyers, or on all the fresh blood being unwilling to switch like people did before. Name recognition is big when you have to get a bunch of people to agree on something, but it only goes so far, if you alienate enough people then it starts to tip the scales and becomes easier to find a group that's playing something else, or to convince a group to make the switch.
I've been playing for 10 years but at this point I'm about ready to say, "Never D&D." Might be tough but tbh the system had started to feel stale to me before this came out.
It's such a big cut, especially for an industry with tight margins, that's it's clear that Wizards doesn't want publishers that big using the OG. It'd prefer to lock them out of this segment of the market.
It’s a smaller cut than apple/Google store.
But also wizards isn’t supplying the whole ass retail store, distribution and uh everything.
This doesn't really effect the majority of TTRPGs. DnD derivatives, sure, but there's whole universes of RPGs that aren't that. I'd assume they were trying to kill DnD if I didn't know that Hasbro really is stupid enough to think that the community won't just migrate elsewhere.
most rpg systems don't use any OGL materials , including some of the ones you mentioned by name, like Fudge
it also shouldn't really affect VTTs, the ones that rely on WotC material have their DnD systems officially licensed
all in all this reeks of exaggerationWell. I urge you to actually read what others in the community are saying. But go off on supporting WoTC and Hasbro ig.
i'm not "supporting WotC", this post is just full of misinformation
what will be affected is some OGL indie games and anyone who makes 3rd party material for DnD, that's basically itI urge you to actually read what others in the community are saying
i have, most of them have no fucking idea how licensing works
have you just never played anything but dnd?
there are a shitload of games that aren't WotC controlled or adjacentI meant 90% of player and revenue. Obviously there’s a ton of games out there.
It is saddening to know that a huge portion of RPG players have only played D&D. I did a survey with about 400 respondents, and 85% of people had only ever played D&D. It's not a very good system, maybe this will move people away from what I think is a pretty garbage system.
I have no idea why fudge or whatever indie game almost totally unrelated to D&D would be affected by this.
It is a bit of snobbery on my part which I should divest myself of, but I still don't understand how fudge system is being affected by this.
Ok, this comment thread was about how unrelated systems would get affected. If WotC can force the fudge creators to hand over 25% of revenue, then that is absolutely relevant (which is what the article is claiming). It would also probably deserve some sort of explanation as to how they would be able to.
Ok, I rescind my mild hope that people move away from D&D. If you enjoy D&D and want official support, this is bad, and is also bad for independent writers of splats and stuff.
2.0 was kind of a dud though... I hope they put out a fixed 2.5 or 3.0.
It is saddening to know that a huge portion of RPG players have only played D&D. I did a survey with about 400 respondents, and 85% of people had only ever played D&D.
huh, guess i got lucky with my groups, most i've come across play other systems more than 5e
I have no idea why fudge or whatever indie game almost totally unrelated to D&D would be affected by this.
they won't, it's a misunderstanding of how licensing works
huh, guess i got lucky with my groups, most i’ve come across play other systems more than 5e
My experience has been that people at gaming clubs tend to play a wider variety of games, whereas more insular groups that started because they enjoyed critical role or because there aren't any available clubs in the area play only D&D. That's entirely anecdotal.
fair
outside of home games, my main ttrpg thing for a while was the Axe and Sickle, the 3.5 west marches server in the ttrpg comm sidebarMine was a university campus club where almost everyone was an "rpg writer" and we had a rotating cast of systems printed out from google docs, as well as official systems. Looking back on it, it was a very hipster-ish "don't play this because everyone else does" kind of environment.
the hipster thing isn't great, but i'm a notorious system hopper myself, so that sounds fun to me lol
Yeah, I'm definitely a fan of sitting around a table, taking a pause to discuss what rules are working and what aren't, changing them there and continuing. I'm mostly there to socialise though. It's pretty rare that I actually think a story/roleplay of a particular game is actually engaging, but I enthusiastically create a crazy-board with red string and post-its all the same. I most enjoy playing around with systems, which I feel like comes from a wargaming/engineering background.
I am actually in a D&D 3.5 system (Star Wars Saga) atm. I'm having fun and it's probably my most chill social interaction time atm. Absolutely wildly different to what I'd design at home, but because of recent traumas I can't actually GM anymore. Alas
Yeah, my current Blades in the Dark gets bogged down in thinking up complications. The hope is we'll get more used to it over time.
Really, the systems I have the fondest memories of were about the characters I was playing and the people I was with. The systems themselves are pretty ancillary, even though I like designing and playing around with tacticool systems.
as someone who's worked TT retail, it is definitely getting better though. Stores have gone from having No Indies to it generally being considered a bad idea to not have at least a shelf of them, maybe more depending on clientile. Wanderhome went viral cuz of a tiktok, and we sold like 30 units in 30 days once. Blades in the dark will move weekly.
Its still bleak, and WOTC aims to make it more so (they're working on "funnel content" rn cuz theyre realizing its cheaper than making game content, collabs with dimension20 and critical role and such
Section 9 of the OGL states:
- Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.
That pretty explicitly states that they can't change it and force people to use the new license (though they can use a completely different license to release new content, which they did with 4E), and there have been lots of statements in the past from people at Wizards saying that's what it means and that's what they intended... however, what they're now trying to argue is that "You may use any authorized version" does not mean that you can use any version that has been authorized, but rather any version that is currently authorized, meaning that they can deauthorize any version whenever they feel like. It's a pretty absurd argument imo but who knows what the courts will say.
If they can't revoke the old version, then it means that the new restrictions and stipulations will only apply to new content, which means content creators will likely just stick with 5E which means players will probably just stick with 5E. Even without a public backlash, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot and ensuring the next edition flops.
It's wild that they're looking at stuff like Critical Role and being like, "Hey, they owe us for their success!" instead of realizing that third party content has been a huge factor behind D&D's rise in popularity. You can really tell that this move is coming from people who are just looking at the numbers and don't care about the hobby or making a good game or even understanding their own product's appeal. They're killing the goose that lays them golden eggs.
Oh, I think they're perfectly aware. It's just that they're taking this popularity and cashing it in. If they're not making money, then why are they allowing it?
Just look at Games Workshop. The most asshole company out there, they are literally run by lawyers. They sue players all the time and come out with new rulesets that force players to re-buy their entire collection of figurines. And yet they're making money hand over fist.
Tabletop RP isn't the same as Warhammer. Each table runs it a little differently, and there's nothing that you have to buy in order to play, other than having access to the rules. There isn't a set of minis that you need to play the game that you can only use with that game, most of the stuff you might buy, like minis, could be used with pretty much any system.
Eh, GW hasn't sued One Page Rules which has made their name on the same systems with the serial numbers filed off.
That's because you can't copyright game rules. If they used the exact phrases then maybe, but if you reword them then the company has no leg to stand on. GW's lawyers would have been all over it if it were in any way actionable.
It's not clear because section 9 of the OGL says they can't change what's already been released, unless their lawyers are able to twist the words to mean the opposite of what they mean, which they might succeed at, but I don't believe that's settled yet. They may be able to harass people with the threat of expensive legal battles though.
The real problem would be trying to fight it in court. One side is a massive corporation (Hasbro). The other side are small amateur and indie publishers that do it for passion. Just the mere threat of a lawsuit is enough to shut down doors.
VIII. TERMINATION. This agreement may be modified or terminated.
A. Modification: This agreement is, along with the OGL: Commercial, an update to the previously available OGL 1.0(a), which is no longer an authorized license agreement. We can modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever, provided We give thirty days’ notice. We will provide notice of any such changes by posting the revisions on Our website and by making public announcements of the changes through Our social media channels.
B. Termination:
i. We may terminate the agreement immediately if:
- a. You infringe upon or misuse any of Our intellectual property, violate any law in relation to Your activities under this agreement, or if We determine in Our sole discretion that You have violated Section VIII.G or VIII.H. To be clear, We have the sole right to decide what conduct violates Section VIII.G or Section VIII.H and You covenant and agree that You will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action. To the extent necessary and allowed by law, You waive any duty of good faith and fair dealing We would otherwise have in making any such determination.
- b. You breach any other term or condition in this agreement, and that breach is not cured within 30 days of Our providing You notice of the breach by communicating with You as provided in Section VIII.A.
- c. You bring an action challenging Our ownership of the Licensed Content, Unlicensed Content, or any patent or trademark owned by Wizards of the Coast.
C. You may terminate this agreement at any time by (i) ceasing all distribution of all Your Licensed Works; and (ii) providing Us with written notice.
COMMENTS:
We know this may come off strong, but this is important: If You attempt to use the OGL as a basis to release blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory content, or do anything We think triggers these provisions, Your content is no longer licensed. To be clear, We want to, and will always, support creators who are using the OGL to help them explore sensitive subjects in a positive manner, but We will not tolerate materials We consider to be in any way counter to the spirit of D&D. Additionally, You waive any right to sue over Our decision on these issues. We’re aware that, if We somehow stretch Our decision of what is or is not objectionable under these clauses too far, We will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We’re more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision. But nobody gets to use the threat of a lawsuit as part of an attempt to convince Us
:capitalist-woke::capitalist-woke::capitalist-woke:
On top of that, games such as [...] Fudge, and Traveller ...
What would Fudge possibly use from the OGL? It's so drastically different. As for Traveller, uhhh maybe the d20 version that nobody plays. Traveller first came out in 1977, well before the advent of the OGL. The 2016 Mongoose 2E copy I have mentions the OGL, oddly enough, but says it uses no open content. Might be referring to their own OGL?
Honestly surprised WotC didn't do this sooner to undercut PF1e which made an entire brand out of being 3.5 again.
I think publishers that had nothing to do with D&D used OGL because they thought it was a way to do GPL but for gaming.
Yeah the OLG 1.1 stuff only applies to third party publishers who want to make D&D 6 books. Other RPGs are completely unaffected, as their publishers can choose what license if any they want to publish their material under, as are already-published works under the previous version of the OGL, as is any book that gets published for the game "Bungeons and Bragons ;)" since you cannot copyright the act of rolling a dice and adding a number to it. I also don't think they could have sunk Pathfinder 1, since PF1 has its own OGL and its own SRD and that was the entire point behind making it.
The main people getting hosed are people making companion apps or Virtual Tabletops or other derivative works, which are now explicitly prohibited from making money under the license.
PF actually does still use the same OGL, but they've moved away from it to the extent that PF 2E doesn't actually use any OGL content from D&D - they keep it around though because it makes it easier for third party publishers. Reddit comment from a design manager at Paizo, 10 months ago:
That's less true than you think. D&D already keeps their most defensible IP to themselves and every word of PF2 was written from scratch. Many of the concepts (fighter, wizard, cleric, spell levels, feats, chromatic dragons, etc.) aren't legally distinct or defensible except under very specific trade dress protections that Paizo's work is all or mostly distinct from anyways, and game mechanics aren't generally copyrightable even if PF2's weren't all written from the ground up. Most of the monsters that touch WotC's trade dress protections (i.e. real-world monsters modified heavily enough to have a distinct WotC version that's legally protectable) have already been reworked or were just always presented as legally distinct versions that don't require the OGL, and things like Paizo's goblins have always been legally distinct for trade dress law and protected for many years despite being released as part of a system using the OGL.
Considerations like keeping the game approachable for 3pp publishers, the legal costs of establishing a separate Paizo-specific license, concerns about freelancers not paying attention to key differences between Paizo and WotC IP, etc., all played a bigger role in PF2's continued use of the OGL than any need to keep the system under it. Not using the OGL was a serious consideration for PF2 but it would have significantly increased the costs related to releasing the new edition and meant that freelancer turnovers would have required an extra layer of scrutiny to make sure people weren't (unintentionally or otherwise) slipping their favorite D&Disms into Pathfinder products. It would have also meant all the 3pps needed to relearn a new license and produce their content under different licenses depending on the edition they were producing for, a level of complication deemed prohibitive to the health of the game.
It's possible and even likely that the next edition doesn't use the OGL at all but instead uses its own license specific to Paizo and the Pathfinder/Starfinder brands. It's just important to the company that they be approachable to a wide audience of consumers and 3pps; this time around the best way to do that was to continue operating under the same OGL as the first edition of the game.
I think they could have gone after Pathfinder in the early days when they had stuff like this in their marketing but I'm not a lawyer so who knows.
lmao those adventurers are melting. pathfinder's art has always been embarrassingly bad.
It was trying way too hard to visually be World of Warcraft.
Not just visually from what I remember of the gameplay. Tbf though I only played a little 4e.
But yeah I like pathfinder despite the hideous art. I even think they've got cool ideas to their visual design, like I enjoy their freaky alien elves, but it's all either terribly drawn like in this example, or its a combination of enough design elements to build an army all crammed into one character.
Sometimes both. Not usually though.
See the problem with these ones is that they're technically well done but egregiously overdesigned. This bird motherfuckers got like 14 ambiguous dangly trinkets, complex patterns on everything, etc. It's ugly for a completely different reason
Honestly how do you find all this stuff comrade
This one's a pretty big deal in the entire subculture of tabletop gaming, it's not like they pulled some weird obscure argument from nowhere lol
I know, but I see the dude always able to pull together large posts and relevant news a lot. Reminds me of Yogothos on Lemmygrad. Sorry, I meant it more a pat on the back than a slap.
thank you for your service :kim-salute: the frontlines must be terrifying
you can't use the spell and ability names from d&d. you'll also get clapped if you're too closely inspired by d&d. I'm afraid they're gonna take smaller games like Dungeon World and FATE to court just because they have d&d-like derivative games, as a way of introducing new players to the broader system by offering them something more familiar.
Can anyone ELI5 how D&D works with other works in coordination with this license?
D&D has an entire ecosystem of creators that use and build on the property via this license. Now WoTC wants to cut that off. People are not happy.
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.
Thanks, I wasn't sure how the ecosystem worked. This was a good explanation.
