A new draft of the Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License called OGL 1.2 from publisher Wizards of the Coast is here now ready for download. The announcement was made by D&D executive producer Kyle Brink on Thursday. on the D&D Beyond website. According to Wizards, this draft could put the OGL outside of the publisher’s control – which should sound good to fans furious over recent events. Time will tell, but public comments will be accepted from January 20th and will last until February 3rd.
The OGL was developed and refined in the run-up to D&D 3rd Edition, and a version of it has been in use for more than two decades. It’s part of the legal framework that allowed developers to build their own tabletop RPGs alongside Hasbro’s own brand. It has led to games like scout, as well as successful companies Paizo, Kobold Press and many more. But proposed changes to the OGL, leaked and first reported by io9, seemed to create a contentious relationship between Wizards and its creator community. That situation only worsened after an extended silence from Wizards surrounding the leak – followed by a less than heartfelt initial apology.
Thursday’s release of the OGL 1.2 draft is accompanied by a much friendlier tone – more in line with a second apology issued on Wednesday. There’s also a surprise: Wizards opts for a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that describes itself as “helping break down legal barriers to the sharing of knowledge and creativity to address the world’s most pressing challenges.” Therefore, once issued, a Creative Commons license could eventually put OGL 1.2 out of Wizards’ control permanently.
“We give the core D&D mechanics to the community via a Creative Commons license, which means they are entirely in your hands,” Brink said in the blog post. “If you essentially want to use D&D content from the SRD like owl bears and magic missiles, OGL 1.2 gives you a perpetual, irrevocable license to do so.”
So much trust has been lost in recent weeks that it will undoubtedly be a while before legal experts — armchair or otherwise — go through the details of the new OGL. But here are the bullet points that Wizards promotes in this official statement:
– Protecting the inclusive gaming experience of D&D. As I said above, content more clearly associated with D&D (like the classes, spells, and monsters) falls under the OGL. You’ll see that we can trade OGL 1.2 when offensive or infringing content is published using the covered D&D stuff. We want an inclusive, safe gaming experience for everyone. This is very important to us, and OGL 1.0a didn’t give us a way to ensure this
– TTRPGs and VTTs. OGL 1.2 applies only to TTRPG content, whether published as books, electronic publications, or on virtual tabletops (VTTs). No one needs to wonder or worry if it applies to anything else. It doesn’t.
– Deauthorization of OGL 1.0a. We know this is a big concern. The Creative Commons License and Open Terms of 1.2 are intended to help with this. A key reason we need to deauthorize: we can’t use the protection options in 1.2 if someone can only choose to post harmful, discriminatory, or illegal content under 1.0a. And again, any content you’ve already published under OGL 1.0a is still licensed under OGL 1.0a.
– Very limited license changes allowed. Just Two sections may change once OGL 1.2 is live: how to cite Wizards in your work and how we can contact each other. We don’t know what the future will bring or what technologies we’ll use to communicate with each other, so we thought these two areas needed to be future-proof.
Fans are encouraged to learn about the intricacies of intellectual property rights and then contact Wizards through official channels – similar to how new in-game content is tested.
A revised version of this draft will again be presented to the community “on or before February 17”.
“The process will take as long as is necessary,” Brink said. “We’ll keep iterating and getting your feedback until we get it right.”
