It sounds pretty bad…
The new Open Gaming License for Dungeons & Dragons appeared online, revealing heavy restrictions on content creators in the community.
Gizmodo revealed details about the new OGL from Wizards of the Coast (WotC), which in the past allowed players and others to profit from unofficial content made for Dungeons & Dragons. However, Wizards of the Coast’s new OGL cancels out the previous one, significantly reduces what content creators can make and forces those who profit from their creations to report it directly to WotC.
…except that, shockingly, a Gawker-spawned site (Gizmodo) has somehow neglected to provide the leaked document that they’re basing their article off of. Of particular interest is whether or not people who produced D&D stuff using OGL 1.0 are actually going to have to renegotiate their agreements, which is not… entirely legally clear. It’d be clearer if we could see the draft OGL, but… well, it also might contradict the main thrust of the article.
But certainly Wizards of the Coast might be interested in tightening up, when it comes to things like podcasts, Let’s Plays, and Kickstarters. Shoot, I can easily believe that they really, really want a piece of the really successful D&D Kickstarters. I’m surprised they haven’t gone after that revenue stream already.
Moe Lane
PS: This is why I used the GUMSHOE Reference Document for the TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION RPG, by the way. Because whether or not WoTC is as bad as that article makes them sound, I trust Pelgrane Press a hell of a lot more than I do Hasbro.
DnD will die within five years or so? I mean this was the norm under TSR way back when and DnD was pretty much dead as an RPG IIRC. However I don’t think that Hasbro can supersede previous versions of the license:
4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.
9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.
TSR… err Hasbro could try to sue I suppose but these clauses are also part of licenses like GPL. Other interests would get involved as otherwise GPL v3 could be forced on GPL v2 for instance.
Of course whoever unsealed that relic from the time of TSR that released the ghost of DnD-Content-Licensing-Past has a lot of explaining to do, and perhaps arrange for an exorcism.
Of course Hasbro could just release a new version of DnD and explicitly license it under their terms.