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Open Game License

From Encyclopedia Dramatica
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Template:Orphaned At least 100 years ago, Wizards of the Coast purchased the then floundering TSR and came into possession of the Dungeons and Dragons IP. Their first two tasks were to replace the unbalanced, non-playtested 2e and to guide a box-office bomb to market, and they accomplished both with surgical precision in 2000. In order to ensure wide adoption of the new 3e d20 system, they licensed their System Reference Document to others under the semi-free Open Game License. This allowed third-party RPG developers to published new works without going to the trouble of writing their own rules, which led to the spread of 3e (and later 5e).

OGL 1.0a

It should be noted that game mechanics falls under the realm of ideas, and ideas can be patented but not copyrighted. Only the expression of those ideas (e.g. through text, audio, code, etc.) can be copyrighted. As anyone using a thesaurus and changing word order in order to avoid looking too much like that online article he or she just read can tell you, coming up with one's own way of expressing an idea, or a large web of RPG rules and mechanics in this case, can be troublesome and time-consuming; hence, the appeal of the Open Game License.

3e grew in popularity, yet Wizards weren't satisfied; they wanted a larger portion of the pie, so they created 4e but devised a new, more restrictive license for it: the Game System License (GSL). Wizards expect everyone to switch over the shiny, new system; instead, third-party publish stuck to 3e and the freer OGL 1.0a.

Wizards learned from this mistake and released 5e (DnD Next) under the OGL 1.0a again. In a eerie reflection of the old Star Trek movie curse, it also became evident that even-numbered editions were bound to be horseshit while odd-numbered edition would restore fan confidence…

OGL 1.1

…Speaking of which, 6e (One DnD) is approaching, and a new edition means new licensing drama. Wizards decided to unlearn the lesson of the 4e-GSL debacle and once again pursue a more restrictive license. The first thing one notices when comparing OGL 1.0a to the new and much disapproved OGL 1.1 is the difference in sheer size: the original is short and simple while the new hot mess is many times larger.

The 1.1 license would've came in two flavors: Commercial and Non-Commercial. The Non-Commercial would've allowed content creators to collect money from those paying them to work (e.g. Patreon and commissions released to the public), while forbidding content creators from collecting money for allowing access to work done, meaning that Non-Commercial doesn't permit private commissions or private behind-the-scenes or early-access content.

Now that we've taught you the basics, let's discuss the provisions that outrage across nerddom. In order of appearance, using the numerals of the longer Commercial version:

  • Section VI.A: The licensee is required to register with Wizards of the Coast even if they don't expect to generate enough sales to reach the royalty threshold. This means that one must hand over their personal information to Wizards and its SJW's even if they make mere pennies or fail to sale. The licensee must also register before they're permitted to sell their product, which means that the registration process also doubles as an approval process.
  • Section VII.B.ii: The licensee is provided with financial incentives to place themselves at the mercy of Kickstarter's moderation team. Since Wizards promises to funnel more users to Kickstarter, Kickstarter might bend over backwards to appease Wizards and ban anyone Wizards doesn't like.
  • Section IX.H: The licensee promises to never to offend any member of the alphabet soup crowd. This provision exists in order to permit Wizards' SJW squad to censor anyone that doesn't assimilate into the Leftist zeitgeist.
  • Section X.A: The licensee is forbidden from pulling Linus and sticking to an older yet better version of the license.

See also

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