D&D WotC OGL Discussion

[JochenL]

SRD 5.1 under CC-BY: https://www.dndbeyond.com/attachments/39j2li89/SRD5.1-CCBY4.0License.pdf

 

[JohnnFour]

WotC announced yesterday that OGL 1.0a is not being deauthorized (for now) and the VTT restrictions proposed will not be enforced.

For any creators out there, if you haven't already, now is a great time to decouple your business from any dependencies that pose future risks. De-OGL your stuff moving forward and start updating your back catalog.

 

[ExileInParadise]

As I said elsewhere - this feels like a stay of execution more than anything else.
It is definitely time to take the lesson learned about potential vulnerabilities in OGL material and update away from them or accept the risk of future issues...

No better time to look at Paizo's ORC initiative, and Kobold's #RaiseTheFlag to see where those go.

I am still waiting for:
* Confirmation that Mongoose really and truly will leave the Traveller SRD 1.1 alone and thereby not interfere with Cepheus Engine
* What new license Free League will re-release Year Zero Engine SRD under
* What the ORC will really be

2023 is a whole new world for TTRPG - and I will miss the OGL as one big license tent for everyone to collaborate under.

It may be a while before anything grows enough of a content pool to really replace it.

 

[Ahkmed]

So after sifting through several pages of information, all of which seems to be dated (several months old), I am still unsure what is going on now with this situation. Personally I do not have to currently worry about it, but as far as what is being done here what if anything did or will change?

 

[JochenL]

The D&D5 SRD is now available via CC.
WOIN, too.
Pathfinder 2 will be released as a Remastered Edition under ORC license.
That's all I know.

 

[ExileInParadise]

So after sifting through several pages of information, all of which seems to be dated (several months old), I am still unsure what is going on now with this situation. Personally I do not have to currently worry about it, but as far as what is being done here what if anything did or will change?

Sort of an ah-hoc summary... when WotC realized people were dumping their D&D Beyond paid access, they backed off on part of the mess they created.

D20 5.0 was released under Creative Commons - Attribution (only) license.

WotC claimed that D20 3.x would be released under Creative Commons later this year as well - waiting to be seen.

They also claimed that D20 5.more or 6.x etc was not happening now - the next updates would be to 5.0 and compatible with the CC-BY licensed text - but the first reviews I heard of the new proposed changes were pretty lame and nothing I am interested in adding to my 5.0.

First off the blocks ditching OGL entirely, Free League released their own Free Tabletop License (FTL) and an updated Year Zero Engine SRD under it to replace their original YZE OGL SRD.

I am still waiting on clarification on some finer points of allowable file formats etc but my early question about software intent was answered - not anything I wanted to hear but at least it didn't ambush me years after the fact like WotC did with OGL 3.x "clarifications"

Then Paizo/Pathfinder dropped the Drow and replaced them with Serpent People going forward to further distance themselves from D20 OGL while they and others built Open Roleplay Creativity license.

I tried to follow their ORC license community on Discord but it quickly spiraled into a nauseating Thought Police nightmare so I bailed and just waited to just see what happened with ORC from official commercial channels.

The earlyy drafts were much longer and more complex than OGL 1.0 was - but they had to be to try to course correct and future proof stuff we wrongly *thought* was done and dusted with OGL 1.0.

The final version is up (as of yesterday as I write this) so now we can all have to look and see if it is anything we want to use:
https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sico?ORC-License-The-Final-Version-is-Here.

So, at this point - the fallout has mostly settled and people are off building the future they way they want: OGL shambles along in a state of undeath (use it if you dare...), D20 itself sails on under a CC-BY flag, many passionate devs ran for ORC, and the rest of the "market" fragments into their own licenses following their own vision.

 

[ExileInParadise]

As far as how any of impacts J4JL, Campaign-Community, Campaign Logger, etc - really only Johnn and Jochen can comment on that.

The way I've seen them operate - it's next as nothing as far as impact.

There may be some old OGL materials hiding somewhere in a dusty corner that won't get updated are quietly retired.

But, the bulk of everything I've seen has been pretty system-agnostic on purpose to avoid getting caught in license traps like that already.

But that's just guesswork from me looking over my amassed collection of Roleplaying Tips related stuff when I was evaluating the possible blast pattern of WotC's January Surprise on my own collected stuff.

 

[Ahkmed]

Thank you for the updates and information.

 

[JohnnFour]

Yes, as @ExileInParadise stated. Our GMing tips, courses, books, and tools are system neutral. My writing often has a heavy fantasy slant, but GMs report they can translate easily into various other genres like steampunk, modern, space opera, etc.

A couple of our products are D&D 5E specific - Demonplague and 5 Room Dungeon Zine. We'll leave those up until they become illegal.