A fork in the road

A Fork in the Road - CC-BY 2.0 (Attribution Generic)

Last night, Wizards of the Coast finally started to get ahead of the crisis curve that has engulfed them since #OGL 1.1 leaked less than a month ago. They announced that OGL1.0a was not going to be removed (thus avoiding the potential for litigation had they done so) and that the entire D&D 5.1 system reference document was being released under a creative commons licence. They did this in the post, with a linked file. That sent a shockwave through the community as people hadn't expected Wizards to roll back this far, this quickly. Now, it's arguable that Wizards didn't actually have the rights to licence some of the material that's in the SRD (as it isn't copyrightable in principle) but in placing it into the commons, they've taken a lot of ambiguity away for third parties. 

Wizards' crisis communication and public relations throughout this has been a disaster, and the whole affair has cost them goodwill and trust. It also cost them financially; many people have cancelled D&D Beyond subscriptions, a lot of people have bought alternative games (for example Pathfinder and Paizo selling huge amounts of stock) and much of the third party industry has started a move away from the OGL to either new systems or careful use of language to avoid infringement.

So we won, right?

From a certain perspective, I think we did. I expect to see most of the industry drop the OGL (even on legacy documents) and switch to the Creative Commons SRD. This is a smart thing to do, because it avoids any risk of a repeat from Wizards of the Coast or another, future, IP owner. This secures livelihoods and allows third parties to release material without fear. The SRD also includes terms which weren't there before (like Strahd, Mind Flayer and Beholder) and were withheld as D&D IP(*).

However, I think this is a fork in the road.

The senior leadership at Wizards is committed to a video-game like future, with micro-payments and increased monetisation. A good section of the existing player-base may not follow the pivot to this as OneD&D is released, preferring to stick with pen, paper and dice even if played over the current generation of VTTs. 

Imagine a future when all new D&D releases are digital and you can't use them beyond Wizards VTT ("We've made it easier by hiding all the rules and stats - you just tell it what kind of test you want"). Imagine a future when Wizards remove D&D5e compatible material from D&D Beyond in favour of OneD&D. And by remove, I mean stop you having access to the material you've paid for. They'll sweeten it of course, probably giving access to the new core rules for free if you own the older version, and perhaps discounts on settings. Imagine them pulling the plug for material you've bought on other platforms like Roll20(**)?

Doesn't feel likely? Remember that they did this before with PDFs on RPGNow without warning. The current D&D Beyond terms allow them to do this.

2.1. License. Subject to your compliance with these Terms, Wizards provides you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, nontransferable, non-assignable, fully revocable license to use the Websites and Services solely for your individual and non-commercial use. Wizards may terminate or suspend any or all portions or features of the Websites, Games, or Services at any time and for any reason or for no reason with no liability to you. This license does not give you any ownership rights in the Websites, Games, or Services. Any rights you do acquire in the aforementioned will forever be owned by and inure to the benefit of Wizards, and as applicable, its successors and assigns.

Think of the SRD passing into Creative Commons as a parting gift; we can play on, do our own things, but the brand of Dungeons & Dragons may be going somewhere else, somewhere the current management (who aren't role-players but video-gamers) think that you'll have more fun and that will make them more money.

28 January 2023

(*) I wonder if this was unintentional, as the release may have been rushed?

(**) Roll20's Marketplace FAQ suggests that Wizards can't pull material you've paid for if they remove it from sale, but we don't know what the commercial terms are between the two companies (which incidentally includes DriveThruRPG).