For the past week, a big controversy around the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game OGL has been igniting the web. Back to the controversy.
OGL. Cekoissa?
It’s been nearly a week since role-playing circles panicked following the leak of a document from Wizard of the Coast (WotC – owners of Dungeons & Dragons). This burning document is version 1.1 of the Open Gaming License.
The Open Gaming License (OGL) is a document published in 2000 by WotC in version 1.0a in order to allow fans and third-party publishers to create, publish and sell content for Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). The requirements of this license are quite broad and have allowed the creation of hundreds of products for D&D. This ranges from complete role-playing games (Pathfinder) to worlds (Midgard) through very extensive campaigns or even adaptations of existing works (Adventure in Middle-earth for 5th edition).
This license was released in conjunction with the System Reference Document (SRD) which detailed the basic D&D rules that any release had to adhere to as part of the OGL (features, spells, classes, archetypes, etc.).
This OGL 1.0 has really boosted the appeal of D&D by offering an immense diversity of content while maintaining a common set of rules.
The craze for the 5e edition of D&D has not denied this profusion of third-party products.
GLO 1.1. Passion & Money
Wizards of the Coast sent a version 1.1 of the OGL supposed to replace 1.0a. This version was a draft according to WotC and leaked quite quickly.
I’m going to put this part in the past tense, because WotC published an official answer this Friday January 13th (weird as a date choice).
To put it into context, since 1999, WotC has been owned by Hasbro. Recently, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks and Wizards of the Coast CEO Cynthia Williams announced that D&D was “undermonetized.” They thought they might apply the same rules to D&D as in video games, offering you paid content all the way, to the point of making you pay for the color of the virtual dice that you might use during your online games!
This new version was nearly 9,000 words once morest 900 for 1.0a. We might clearly feel the influence of the Lawyer-CFO multi-classification in vogue at WotC.
The shocking points were:
- WotC might collect your creations and sell them without owing you anything.
- Version 1.1 of the OGL replaced version 1.0a with retroactive effect.
- You had to pay 25% royalties to WotC from 750,000 USD of income.
- Even below 750,000 USD, you were required to declare your income to WotC.
- WotC might remove your product line with 30 days notice and even sell them for you!
Needless to say, this news caused quite a stir and WotC drew the ire of almost the entire role-playing community. Just type OGL 1.1 into a search engine to realize the extent of the wave of outrage and fear that this news has sparked.
I think WotC did not measure the fact that role-playing is above all else a matter of passion and imagination rather than just a source of income.
That WotC wants to introduce a royalty system is not shocking in itself. Still can we ask why following more than 20 years? But the way it is done is abrupt and without any respect for intellectual property. Except theirs.
That’s why the most important content publishers for the 5e edition of D&D quickly took a stand even before the official version of the new OGL was published.
Some have purely and simply announced the end of their product line for D&D. Others, the slingshot, rallied under the banner of Kobold Edition, including Paizo from Path/StarFinder or Chaosium from Cthulhu, announce that they want to share a new game system called ORCpour Open RPG Creative License.
« The ORC will not be owned by Paizo, nor will it be owned by any company who makes money publishing RPGs »
“The ORC will not belong to Paizo, or any company that makes money publishing RPGs”
Paizo
Coaster from WotC
WotC finally had to resolve to respond officially to the huge wave of protest and its concrete effects (online petitions with more than 500,000 signatures, mass cancellation of accounts on DnDbeyond, the online tools platform for D&D).
???? Here is a link to their official response (via the dndbeyond platform):
To sum it up, it’s a kind of… mea culpa halftone. The two main reasons for this new version of the OGL was to prevent the publication of hateful or discriminatory content, but also to protect once morest the use of D&D in web3, blockchain games or NFTs.
It’s a bit of a smokescreen, knowing that the publication of discriminatory content is limited to a few cases which immediately suffer the wrath of the role-playing community. Regarding uses in blockchain games or NFT, I have never heard of it.
Even so, this does not explain the total abandonment of rights in favor of WotC on any content covered by OGL 1.1.
They still admit to having made a mistake “However, it’s clear from the reaction that we rolled a 1”. “Given the reactions, we rolled a 1” (=> a critical failure, a fumble, in Dungeons and Dragons).
But they do not let go and still claim to want to publish a 2.0 version of the OGL. However, they abandon the notion of retroactivity of the new version.
In the next episode
I think that despite this answer, the image damage is enormous and that the rebellion which was born from this revolution is not regarding to calm down.
It’s a pity that an activity of pure creation and stimulating the imagination finds itself affected by a story of… big money. Not that I’m once morest WotC wanting to keep control of D&D. After all, they own it.
On the other hand, they should have hired more creators rather than… lawyers and financiers. Indeed, if it had been necessary to count only on the production of D&D contents of WotC, I am not convinced that the success of the 5e edition would have endured. A lesson to be learned for Wizard of the “Coast».
The good news is that a lot of RPG content producers are still driven by enthusiasts. The creation of a new free game system may bring in new blood, who knows?
For the old roleplayer that I am, who started his career with the basic D&D box, it’s still a little hard to see that even a fantasy game can be caught up in our sad, commercial reality.
The next few weeks are likely to be rich in twists and turns. I hope this doesn’t spell the end of D&D because honestly version 5 of the great old one took me back to my childhood, and there’s nothing better for health et l’imagination.
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Article written by Linus le virus. Relentless roleplayer for 40 years (he started with the red box of D&D but also Tunnels & Trolls. His other passions are: board games, reading and cooking.)
Did you follow all this controversy that ignited the web this week? What did you think ? And its “resolution”?
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