VICTORY! D&D WON'T CHANGE ITS OGL!

[DerVVulfman]

VICTORY!
D&D WON'T CHANGE ITS OGL!
Dungeons & Dragons will now be protected under Creative Commons

After three weeks of backlash by angered fans of the game, Wizards of the Coast announced that they abandoned their plans to alter the OGL (Open Gaming License) for Dungeons & Dragons, and placed a subsection of the published rules for the game under a Creative Commons License.  The OGL was evolved and refined when the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons was being developed, it having existed now for over twenty years, providing a legal framework to permit the creation of table-top RPGs of their own.

However, a stir arose when a proposed OGL license revised by Hasbro, the new owners of Wizards of the Coast, was leaked on the 5th of January.  This new OGL suggested an adversarial relationship, the story breaking even on NPR and CNBC. It would make claims towards ownership of content created by others who used their product, and even threatened pod-streaming of game news, events, or playthroughs.  Hasbro's acquisition of Wizards of the Coast not only meant ownership of Dungeons and Dragons, but Magic: The Gathering.

Due to the response by fans, Duneons & Dragon's new executive producer, Kyle Brink, issued a full-throated apology. This apology sharply contrasted his earlier response released earlier in the month. Well over fifteen thousand fans were very vocal about the direction the game was taking, Finally heeding the anger of the fanbase, the revised OGL was going to no longer change conditions of content ownership, and the content of D&D was made more open than before by publishing its rules and lore under Creative Commons.

This Creative Commons license makes the content freely available for any use. We don’t control that license and cannot alter or revoke it. It’s open and irrevocable in a way that doesn’t require you to take our word for it. And its openness means there’s no need for a VTT policy. Placing the SRD under a Creative Commons license is a one-way door. There’s no going back.

Is there fallout over the whole episode?

There were plenty of people taking to social media behind the #OpenDnD hashtag, stating they would no longer support what was then the most popular tabletop RPG. Others game developers stepped forward to offer alternative RPG systems, Warhammer being one of the more recognized which some gamers may have flocked.

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

I followed this whole mess via another forum I lurk on and while I'm glad that WotC blinked and wisely decided to back down, it shouldn't be forgotten that it was solely because the community forced them to back down.

As for the backlash, I know that Paizo (Pathfinder and Starfinder) organized the ORC (Open RPG Creative) alliance with the objective of creating a new OGL and was eventually joined by more than 1500 publishers around the globe. This bit was mentioned in the Polygon article above.

https://www.cbr.com/pathfinder-1500-ttrp...-alliance/

Most tabletop gamers in the forums I frequent as well as in Reddit say they will never come back to D&D again as there's no warranty that either WotC or Hasbro won't attempt a similar stunt in the future.

[kyonides]

So Steel and Wulfo, are you going back to DnD?
I've downloaded one of Warhammer's online games but I gotta say I've never played it.
 Not like I were an expert in DnD weird rules anyway. All those dice rules gets me  dizzy as (fill in the blank here!) ever since I first heard about the game. And RPGs were getting quite common in  PC and consoles at that time...

[DerVVulfman]

Whatever one thinks, here's a breakdown. The creative commons license cannot be nullified by Hasbro. If you were to write code and then put it under Creative Commons with established rules, that's it. You can make something new and have a new license for that product, but what you established and covered under CC... it is done.

You can design content using 5th edition rules
You can publish your own original campaign using 5th edition rules
Hell, you can even print and sell your own 5th edition based content

Given the OGL has been around for decades, this would apply to editions earlier. However, how many are playing original Advanced D&D or ... even has copies of "Basic Dungeons and Dragons" (besides me)? I got so many boxes n shelves full....

However, the creative commons license doesn't cover specific settings still owned and separated away like "Forgotten Realms". Or *cough* free distribution of the upcoming "Dungeons & Dragons" movie with Chris Pine.