Let's Break Down the Wizards of the Coast Statement About the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS OGL As Best We Can
Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has provided an official response to the chaos ensuing after the leak of the new Open Gaming License (OGL) 1.1. In case you somehow missed it, last week, Linda Codega at io9 shared a leak of the update to the OGL which was very bad. The OGL allows creators to use specific wording and language from Dungeons & Dragons in their works. This has allowed a thriving community of content creators for D&D and even some new tabletop RPGs like Pathfinder to be born! The OGL 1.1 aimed to introduce a royalty structure, language that gave WotC ownership over IPs that used the OGL, and more. It was awful. Then, on January 13, 2023, WotC issued an official statement on the D&D Beyond forums.
In the article that follows, I want to go through the different parts of the statement and attempt to clear away at least some of the utter bullcrap that the statement is drenched in. Before I begin though, I want it to be clear that the opinions expressed are my own and not reflective of GeekTyrant as a whole. Also, I am not a lawyer or anything like that; what I express will be my takeaways. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments, but please keep everything civil. I will be taking things one paragraph at a time.
When we initially conceived of revising the OGL, it was with three major goals in mind. First, we wanted the ability to prevent the use of D&D content from being included in hateful and discriminatory products. Second, we wanted to address those attempting to use D&D in web3, blockchain games, and NFTs by making clear that OGL content is limited to tabletop roleplaying content like campaigns, modules, and supplements. And third, we wanted to ensure that the OGL is for the content creator, the homebrewer, the aspiring designer, our players, and the community—not major corporations to use for their own commercial and promotional purpose.
At face value, I can actually appreciate and agree with this entire paragraph. I think it’s great to try to prevent your content from being used in hateful and discriminatory products. I personally am opposed to NFTs and the blockchain so I’m glad to hear about a big company trying to make it so their content can’t be used for those things. I can even appreciate the fact that one would not want another “major corporation” to directly use their product to grow. There’s some nuance to that last bit that isn’t addressed, but the overall sentiment is something that I can be onboard with. Not a bad start to their statement although with the information from the OGL 1.1 leak, this falls a little flat.
Driving these goals were two simple principles: (1) Our job is to be good stewards of the game, and (2) the OGL exists for the benefit of the fans. Nothing about those principles has wavered for a second.
This is where I’m going to first call bullcrap. We know that there’s a third, very big principle that was behind the OGL revisions. Per Dicebreaker, back in December 2022 during an investor meeting, WotC CEO and president Cynthia Williams stated that D&D is “really under monetised.” In other words, I’m saying that once again corporate greed was a huge player in all of this. WotC figured it could change the OGL to get more money and the leaked 1.1 is pretty clear about it.
That was why our early drafts of the new OGL included the provisions they did. That draft language was provided to content creators and publishers so their feedback could be considered before anything was finalized. In addition to language allowing us to address discriminatory and hateful conduct and clarifying what types of products the OGL covers, our drafts included royalty language designed to apply to large corporations attempting to use OGL content. It was never our intent to impact the vast majority of the community.
You’re going to notice something starting here and going for the rest of the statement. WotC repeatedly talks about how everything that fans were reacting to was merely “early drafts” designed to gather feedback. Don’t buy it. I’ll talk more about it in a bit, but this is important. Now, we do also have to talk about the last couple of lines. They admit that the “drafts” included royalty language that was meant to hit large corporations. However, one key piece of information that’s part of the nuance that I mentioned earlier is how is anyone defining “large corporation” or “major corporation?” There are D&D projects put out by relatively small teams and individuals that do really well on platforms like Kickstarter. Under the leaked OGL 1.1, all that matters is your gross revenue from a product to be hit with royalty fees and was one of the biggest problems with the document.
However, it’s clear from the reaction that we rolled a 1. It has become clear that it is no longer possible to fully achieve all three goals while still staying true to our principles. So, here is what we are doing.
No dip Sherlock! I don’t think it’s inherently impossible to achieve their three goals while sticking with the two proposed principles. The problem is that you can’t achieve the goals while staying true to the two proposed principles and the third, unspoken principle of milking D&D for every penny possible. I’m not entirely sure how one might accomplish the goals with the principles, but I’m also not an IP lawyer who would know how to do that. WotC has lawyers that could probably help them if they really wanted. Shall we see what WotC has said they’ll do?
The next OGL will contain the provisions that allow us to protect and cultivate the inclusive environment we are trying to build and specify that it covers only content for TTRPGs. That means that other expressions, such as educational and charitable campaigns, livestreams, cosplay, VTT-uses, etc., will remain unaffected by any OGL update. Content already released under 1.0a will also remain unaffected.
If I’m understanding correctly, what this means is that when the new OGL (reportedly deemed OGL 2) launches (that’s right, they’re still coming out with a new one), any content released under OGL 1.0a will be unaffected and only new TTRPG content like adventures and settings will fall under OGL 2. Under OGL 1.1, WotC was going to make it so that virtual tabletops (VTTs), computer games, novels, videos, etc. would not be allowed outside of the Fan Content Policy. This would’ve meant that anything like this would’ve been required to be free and individuals would not be able to charge for them.
What it will not contain is any royalty structure. It also will not include the license back provision that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work. That thought never crossed our minds. Under any new OGL, you will own the content you create. We won’t. Any language we put down will be crystal clear and unequivocal on that point. The license back language was intended to protect us and our partners from creators who incorrectly allege that we steal their work simply because of coincidental similarities. As we continue to invest in the game that we love and move forward with partnerships in film, television, and digital games, that risk is simply too great to ignore. The new OGL will contain provisions to address that risk, but we will do it without a license back and without suggesting we have rights to the content you create. Your ideas and imagination are what makes this game special, and that belongs to you.
Yay! The royalty structure will be gone! Also, WotC won’t own anything created by a third party under the OGL 2. This is fantastic news and will certainly be a huge sigh of relief for many. However, there’s more to it than that. In this paragraph they say that the “license back provision” which would’ve given WotC free reign with third party IPs was meant to protect them from those “who incorrectly allege that we steal their work” and what they don’t mention is that it would’ve protected them by giving them ownership of the work in the first place.
A couple of last thoughts. First, we won’t be able to release the new OGL today, because we need to make sure we get it right, but it is coming. Second, you’re going to hear people say that they won, and we lost because making your voices heard forced us to change our plans. Those people will only be half right. They won—and so did we.
No duh they can’t release it today like they had planned. Also, I wouldn’t say that D&D won at all in this scenario. What they’ve done is stemmed the bleeding. The community won because D&D did listen and is tweaking the new OGL, although it seems to not be exactly what fans truly want. However, D&D has suffered big time. Not only have they completely demolished a lot of trust between them and consumers, they have seen a mass exodus from D&D Beyond subscriptions which means they’re losing a ton of money there, many in the community have already started switching systems, many of the third party content creators for D&D have decided to no longer support them, other companies like Kobold Press and MCDM have announced they’re making their own TTRPG systems, their competitors have earned a lot of goodwill as they launch their own creative licenses for fans to use, etc. D&D has lost a lot. This is 100% just them trying to spin things.
Our plan was always to solicit the input of our community before any update to the OGL; the drafts you’ve seen were attempting to do just that. We want to always delight fans and create experiences together that everyone loves. We realize we did not do that this time and we are sorry for that. Our goal was to get exactly the type of feedback on which provisions worked and which did not–which we ultimately got from you. Any change this major could only have been done well if we were willing to take that feedback, no matter how it was provided–so we are. Thank you for caring enough to let us know what works and what doesn’t, what you need and what scares you. Without knowing that, we can’t do our part to make the new OGL match our principles. Finally, we’d appreciate the chance to make this right. We love D&D’s devoted players and the creators who take them on so many incredible adventures. We won’t let you down.
It’s important to note that by D&D issuing this statement, they are confirming the leaked OGL 1.1 was real. That was not a draft. We know it wasn’t a draft and this entire paragraph is pretty much bullcrap because the supposed “draft” stated that the OGL 1.1 was to take effect on January 13, the day the statement was released. They even admit that they had planned on launching it today in this statement. They say that they wanted community feedback but when were they going to ask for it? A week before it went live and then the leak killed it? After OGL 1.1 went into effect? They had no intention of getting community feedback before launching it. As Codega put it in her breakdown at io9:
The drafts that io9 received were not a thought experiment. They were intended to gauge a reaction, but from individual publishers that Wizards could silence with an NDA, not from the public at large. For all intents and purposes, the OGL 1.1 that was leaked to the press was supposed to go forward.
Also, I love how they say they “appreciate the chance to make this right.” but then offer literally nothing other than the three changes listed. Granted, they are big changes, but not the grand gesture that usually accompanies that phrase. Also, according to them, they were planning on getting feedback anyways and so there’s no actual harm done for them to make up for right?
This entire statement is awful PR. It reeks of “caught with their hand in the cookie jar” energy and trying to make an atrocity seem like an innocent mistake. Make no mistake, they knew exactly what they were doing. If it truly was an innocent mistake, it wouldn’t have taken over a week for them to issue a response. I’m glad that they’ve said they’ll make the changes listed, that is extremely good news. However, this statement is completely laughable. If you’ve been holding your breath, the day isn’t won quite yet and I wouldn’t let out a huge sigh of relief. I’d maybe recommend a small sigh and then another inspiration to keep your oxygen levels normal. Until the OGL 2 is put out there, we can’t know how serious WotC is about anything stated here.
If you’re looking for a new TTRPG to play, I recently shared a list of a ton that won’t go back to Hasbro and won’t be affected by the OGL changes. Also, keep in mind that many companies like Paizo and Chaosium have announced the Open RPG Creative Licensing (ORC) to be a better OGL and Modiphius is launching a program for their 2d20 system. What do you think of the statement by WotC? What do you plan to do for your games?
