Thread by @Anarisis

I've noticed a lot of the pressure on WotC D&D to drop OGL 1.1 is treating it as the cause of overreach & anticompetitive practices, but I want to make it clear that it's part of a long history that will continue with or without it.

Bear with me, this is gonna be a long 🧵

For those out of the loop, here's @lincodega's original piece on the new OGL: gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of…

And here's the new article on today's statement: gizmodo.com/dungeons-drago…

These two should get you up to speed.

The problems I've seen people highlight and want to cover here are:

• Restrictions on D&D content
• Royalties (still relevant, trust)
• WotC use of 3rd-party content
• WotC's seeming disrespect for "the community"

I'll do my best to include citations throughout this thread.

Significant energy has been expended by WotC (and TSR before they were bought in 1997) over decades to restrict publisher access to D&D and its core system. TSR began to lock down access to D&D in the 80s via lawsuits against 3rd-party publishers:
skotos.net/articles/TTnT_…

The central issue is that copyright doesn't protect "bare facts, mere ideas, systems, or methods" (i.e. the majority of a game or system) so much as an entity's creative expression (the specific creative verbiage and presentation) that surrounds the functional core of a game.

(Here's a great post from @GaySpaceshipGms that goes into *way* more detail on copyrightability of TTRPGs and the ways the OGL restricts otherwise assumed rights and from which I pulled the quote above.)
eff.org/deeplinks/2023…

Speaking from personal experience, it's been industry knowledge for decades that copyright doesn't protect your game rules, and that you don't need permission to develop compatible supplements or build off the mechanics of another system.

This poses a problem for companies that want to maintain control of their RPG systems, and it's a problem WotC sought to solve with the release of the OGL in 2000. By creating a license agreement for D&D, WotC was able to restrict usage of the system to prevent competing products

and encourage market dominance of the D&D system that would ultimately benefit Wizards by reducing system diversity and driving more consumers to their core products. This was *explicitly* stated by WotC's VP at the time:
web.archive.org/web/2002040423…

https://twitter.com/machineiv/status/1613627534884671503

Simultaneously, it ensured both market dominance for Wizards' RPG and an ample supply of game designers familiar with the system that Wizards could contract without concern for cost of training or bargaining power by way of specialized knowledge.

Widespread adoption of the OGL allowed WotC to set itself up as an authority over what is and isn't a "real" D&D supplement which, among other things, launched D&D from a game people played to a lifestyle brand and would set the stage for their next move…

WotC pulled all their products from digital distributors in 2009 (purportedly due to piracy), then struck a deal with OneBookShelf in 2013 to create DNDClassics (later DMsGuild) as the *only* official marketplace for digital D&D products.

With a centralized marketplace under WotC's control, they bolstered their authoritative position over the system and extended it beyond their own published works while pulling in revenue from 3rd-party supplements by way of a massive 50% royalty.

Another large issue raised in the conversation around OGL 1.1 is Wizards' perceived ownership over 3rd-party materials. Though Wizards claim to have walked that back today, the exact same policy already applies to all products hosted on the DM's Guild.

Per the Community Content Agreement for Dungeon Masters Guild, you grant them: "[E]xclusive, irrevocable license for the full term of copyright protection available (including renewals), to all User Generated Content included in your Work."

"You agree that the User Generated Content is available for unrestricted use by us without any additional compensation, notification or attribution, including that we may allow other Program authors, [WotC & Hasbro] and other third parties to use the User Generated Content"

(The text of this agreement is pulled from this dump and attested to elsewhere: reddit.com/r/dmsguild/com…)

This new license was instated in 2016, and explicitly gives Hasbro & Wizards the right to use any and all IP submitted to the DM's Guild however they wish. Without limitation, WotC *effectively* owns all 3rd-party content currently for sale on the one "official" D&D marketplace.

To participate you have to give them the right to use your work however they wish. While OGL 1.1 sought to extend that power beyond its own marketplace to cover even independently-published works, it's important to note that this isn't new territory for WotC business strategy.

Everything ultimately coalesces into an air of elitism and corporatism that has been at the core of WotC and D&D for decades. WotC's purchase of D&D Beyond was marked by disrespect for the people who worked there & their contributions to D&D's latest boom.

https://twitter.com/acsearles/status/1612107992668966912

Even now, WotC leadership are relying on the short memory of the media cycle and view their customers as "obstacles between them and their money". Today's response was full of spin and straight up lies, and there's no indication of a real course change.

https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1613576298114449409

Even if OGL 1.1 is eventually scrapped — and even with today's proposed changes — D&D's business strategy has always been built on a restrictive anti-creative core that seeks to limit innovation in RPGs and hoard control and money in as few hands as possible.

WotC has made it clear through their actions that their primary goal is to circumvent copyright vulnerabilities and extract as much money as possible from their fanbase. OGL 1.1 won't be the end of that if it continues forward, and neither will its possible defeat.

The problems are built in, and any real solution must be aimed at redistributing power (social and monetary) throughout the industry, rather than seeking to regulate the application of WotC's centralized control. Wizards needs to be a participant in industry, not a boss fight.

This has officially become Big Enough™ that I'm comfortable with a smidge of promo. If you believe in community design, the entire point of my patreon is to fund homebrew and RPG content that's free & public, and even small pledges make a big difference!

patreon.com/anarisis