I’d been planning on letting D&D as a topic cool off for the month of January after my “D&D December,” but some things shouldn’t go unaddressed. Originally published during the game’s 3rd edition in 2000, the Open Game License (OGL) allowed third-party publishers to create compatible game material for Dungeons and Dragons. This was an out-and-out win for both the community and Wizards of the Coast. Player-facing books will always be the better selling product, but if there is no support for the game master, games will be harder to run, harder to find. While that investment-to-profit ratio on GM-facing products might be unappealing to a large corporation, a smaller creator might squeeze into that slim margin for a passion project and come out ahead.
The document, by its own language, is “irrevocable.” From Wizards in 2004, “… if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there’s no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.”
Late last year, rumors began circling about Wizards / Hasbro wanting to make changes to the OGL. On January 5th, Linda Codega received a draft of the new document and reported on the changes therein. The OGL 1.1 wanted to deauthorize the original version, included new clauses about ownership and royalty fees to be paid to WOTC, and a requirement for all would-be creators to register with WOTC. This was saddled with an effective date of January 13th, giving creators a mere handful of days to comply.
And the community was set ablaze.
Aftermath
In the wake of all this news, the tabletop community acted fast. Videos from CritCrab, DnD Shorts, LegalEagle and even larger creators were being dropped on the daily. DnD Shorts was sent an email from an employee within WOTC revealing that the executive sentiment saw the players of D&D as “an obstacle to their money.” Subscriptions on dndbeyond were the metric they were observing to see the financial impact of the news. Hundreds, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of subscriptions were cancelled (mine included). And, finally, WOTC made a response.
The OGL 1.1 was going to be “delayed.” WOTC assured us that they’d always intended to gather feedback from the community before going forward with any changes. They wanted us to know that the community won – but so did WOTC. And in internal dialogue, WOTC’s management believes that the fans are “overreacting” to the leaked draft, and that in a few months, nobody will remember the uproar.
Here’s a few things: if WOTC always intended to gather community feedback, why did the draft have an effective date within a few days of it being sent out? Why did WOTC contact Kickstarter regarding crowdfunded projects?
Before Wizards made their response, the third-party publishers were first to speak. Kobold Press announced project Black Flag to release a new, subscription free ruleset – a new splinter like Paizo before them. And Paizo announced their plans to have a system neutral Open RPG Creative License (ORC) drafted and handled by Azora Law to provide safe harbor against any company involved being bought, sold, or changing management.
It’s really hard to see exactly why Wizards thinks they won anything here.
What It Means for Me
There’s a lot spinning out of this for me. Foremost, I’m planning on switching to a new system for my next campaign. Realistically, I could continue playing 5th edition for the rest of my life without giving WOTC another cent, but I’d rather continue to contribute to the hobby’s growth by learning other systems. I’ve had the urge on-and-off to write a module of the campaign opening I used for my last two games, and ultimately it doesn’t look like that would be something I want to do with D&D’s system anymore. This week, my players and I are taking out first stab at Pathfinder’s 2nd edition during a break in our normal campaign.
Additionally, my blog category is now going to be generalized to “TTRPGs.” Some old posts have had their titles adjusted – ones where I believe the topic is applicable to TTRPGs as a whole and not just D&D. Many of those posts were about system specifics or fandom divides, however, and those will retain their titles.
Lastly, it’s likely I will stop covering the changes for OneD&D on my blog. Unless WOTC completely reneges on their attempts to change the OGL and signs on to Paizo’s ORC, I see little reason to contine to do so. TTRPGs are bigger than D&D, and even D&D is bigger than WOTC and Hasbro. To this day, people still play older, unsupported editions of the game with no need to advance to the newest thing.
When you remember that, it’s laughable that Wizards ever thought that these changes would slide.
As always, thank you for reading. Good luck out there, heroes.
Ben Stovall Blog 
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