{"id":6920,"date":"2022-12-27T10:04:57","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T10:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/?p=6920"},"modified":"2025-06-26T23:05:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T23:05:58","slug":"on-the-wotc-ogl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davelevy.info\/wiki\/on-the-wotc-ogl\/","title":{"rendered":"On the WOTC OGL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the turn of the years 2022\/23 Wizards of the Coast shocked their 3rd<\/sup> party creator community by proposing to revoke their open licence and charge royalties on successful derived content. I created this page to track the events and comments made and posted a blog article, On WOTCs permissive licences<\/a>, also mirrored on medium<\/a>. I also created mirrors of certain critical documents. The upshot of the story was that WOTC withdrew the proposals and published the System Resource Document (SRD) under a creative commons licence. I revisited and amended this page in Apr 2025 when WOTC published the SRD for their 2024 rule set and I rfeproduced my document archive index on this page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/a>\n\n\n\n

Critical Resources aka my document archive<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I have mirrored the Player’s Handbook<\/a>, & the OGL1.0\/SRD<\/a>. I also made the following archive and originally published them on dfl.ddns.net. I added the 5.2 item in Apr 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dungeons & Dragons is owned by a public company and has published its rules under a permissive copyleft licence. Here are the key \u2018open\u2019 artefacts.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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  1. The Player\u2019s handbook ( .pdf wayback machine)<\/a> and my .pdf mirror<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. The Player\u2019s handbook (.torrent)<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. The OGL 1.0a & SRD 5.1 (.pdf wizards)<\/a> and my .pdf mirror<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. The OGL & SRD 5.1 (.torrent)<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. SRD 5.2, WOTC Landing Page<\/a> & my mirror<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Given that WOTC backed down the need for a torrents went away, but it remains available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Preamble<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    I originally started the page by saying that WOTC are looking to earn more money from their D&D assets, this has led to some 3rd party creators to worry about their right of access to the rules which had been available to them via WotC Open Gaming Licence OGL 1.0a. The similarity with the software industry’s open source wars and the music industries war on its customers and fans piqued my interest. This page was published on Dec 22, 2022. Much of what this page contains is contemporaneous, or at least over the next few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This story caused an explosion amongst the creator community and it has become a fast moving story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Links<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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    1. What wikipedia says about Wizards_of_the_Coast<\/a>, a a division of Hasbro, and the Hasbro Annual Report<\/a> which implies a 2021 Revenue to Wizards of the Coast of $1bn and a revenue to the division of over $2bn. I went looking for the WOTC riposte in their news archive<\/a>  but found nothing there; they put it up on d&d beyond<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. The WOTC riposte<\/a> stating that little will change. I believe that these links document the current state http:\/\/www.opengamingfoundation.org\/ogl<\/a> and the SRD V5.1 with the OGL 1.0a<\/a>  and the WOTC fan content policy<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Gizmodo did a piece<\/a> from a leaked version of OGL 1.1<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. WOTC’s second attempt<\/a>, to clarify their thoughts, and also a third, six days later, “Have WoTC caved?”, a statement<\/a> by Kyle Brink dated the 18th Jan 2023. If that wasn’t capitulation then this<\/a> is., WOTC publish the SRD 5.1<\/a> under a CC BY 4.0 licence, claiming the licence belongs to someone else, and is also irrevocable. [ my mirror<\/a> ]<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    5. The free player’s handbook<\/a>, and my mirror<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    6. Treantmonk comments<\/a> on youtube on the affair, based on the first leak, he is cautious and optimistic, but changed his mind<\/a> after the Gizmodo article and again after Brink’s statement<\/a>. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    7. The Damage Done by the Otherwise Ineffectual Open Gaming License<\/a>, argues it’s unneeded and basically propaganda for the idea it is. The Legal Eagle talks<\/a> about copyright, trademarks and algorithms. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    8. The ORCPUB affair, by those<\/a> who rescued the code, which I thought might be relevant but it seems I was being over suspicious. The publishers of that article, dungeon masters vault<\/a> also have a character repo. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      On 13th Jan, I discovered Paizo’s response<\/a>, to assert that the OGL cannot revoked, that they believe their material is now free of WOTC intellectual property and that they are launching their own license, the Open RPG Creative Licence. Dice Breaker’s Matt Jarvis also comments<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      More …<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

      I’d say, they don’t want to turn into GW, who earned \u00a3386.6m revenue last year, which will include income from minis and game software income. I note that Warhammer is a competitive wargame, D&D is a collaborative story telling game. DnD would seem to be three times as large as Warhammer. Maybe not, the WOTC numbers include Magic the Gathering”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Statement No 3.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

      Issued by WOTC includes the following statements<\/p>\n\n\n

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      Any changes to the OGL will have no impact on at least<\/strong> these creative efforts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n