“Dungeons & Dragons” recently released a statement announcing that the Hasbro-owned publisher of the game, Wizards of the Coast, will now license the tabletop role-playing game’s core mechanics under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This gives the community “a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license” to sell and publish works based on the game.
“For over 20 years, thousands of creators have helped grow the TTRPG community using a shared set of game mechanics that are the foundation for their unique worlds and other creations. We don’t want that to change, and we’ve heard loud and clear that neither do you…,” “Dungeons & Dragons” said in their official blog post. “We’re giving the core D&D mechanics to the community through a Creative Commons license, which means that they are fully in your hands.”
This decision is a direct response to several fears the community had after io9 reported on the initial OGL 1.1. Draft last January 5th. The Creative Commons license will cede the control of Wizards of the Coast over the base rules and mechanics of “Dungeons & Dragons,” and the publisher will not be able to touch it, nor will it be able to revoke it.
Furthermore, content that steps beyond the remit of using core rules will fall under a new OGL, regarded as 1.2, which will contain particular language denoting the license as “irrevocable.” This puts an enormous pressure point on creators who used the original OGL 1.0 and were worried about the implications of the 30-day termination clause in the OGL 1.1.
“Overall, what we’re going for here is giving good-faith creators the same level of freedom (or greater, for the things in Creative Commons) to create TTRPG content that’s been so great for everyone, while giving us the tools to ensure the game continues to become ever more inclusive and welcoming,” “Dungeons & Dragons” executive producer Kyle Brink wrote in a blog post.
Additionally, the statement also said there will be “no royalty payment, no financial reporting, no license-back, no registration, no distinction between commercial and non-commercial.” All of these stuff were contested in the draft OGL 1.1, mainly since they were not in the OGL 1.0, and such “strings-attached” contracts deliberately go against the ethos of “open” gaming as indicated on the official website of the Open Gaming Foundation.
The new OGL 1.2 license will be subject to the same type of revision and feedback that “Dungeons & Dragons” books are subjected to. In gaming jargon, this is known as “playtesting” and will let fans air their concerns directly with “Dungeons & Dragons.”
What do you think of this decision by the publisher of “Dungeons & Dragons”?
