By now I assume
that most people who visit this blog are aware of the raging storm over the
changes that the Wizards of the Coast (part of Hasbro) are seeking to make to
the Open Game License (OGL).
The current OGL (v.
1.0a) has been around for over two decades now and has facilitated a number of
important developments in the role-playing hobby. In addition to all the
material produced for Dungeons & Dragons by third-party publishers (mainly
for 3e, 3.5e, and 5e), it enabled the creation of a number of role-playing
games that draw upon some of the core mechanics of D&D (e.g., Mutants
and Masterminds). The Old School Renaissance (OSR) probably would not have
happened (at least not in the way that it did) without the OGL. The original
retro-clone, OSRIC, restated the 1e AD&D rules, using the OGL for cover.
(It was a brilliant insight on the part of Matt Finch, aka “Mythmere,” that
this was possible.) Likewise, the first edition of Pathfinder used the
OGL to repackage (with some tweaks) the 3.5 edition D&D rules in order to
cater to gamers dissatisfied with 4th edition. No doubt WotC was not
happy about that! But ultimately it pressured WotC to rethink 4e D&D (as
did, I think, the OSR to some extent) and produce a far superior product, 5e
D&D.
Anyhow, it looks
like WotC aims to try to revoke OGL 1.0a and replace it with a new one (v. 1.1)
with rather draconian conditions. For a helpful (and brief) overview, see this Inverse
article, or this Forbes (!) one, or this Ars Technica one.
As a side note, legally
speaking (but keep in mind that I am not a lawyer) the OGL was never actually
necessary and in fact imposes conditions stricter than those imposed by
standard US copyright law (let alone the laws of other countries, which tend to
be more generous with “fair use” than the US). The reason for this is that game
rules cannot be copyrighted. So a product that dryly restated the rules
of AD&D, for instance, would be perfectly legal. However, artistic and
literary expression can be copyrighted. Given the literary nature of
role-playing games, a lot of the specific descriptions of classes, spells, monsters,
settings, and so forth can (arguably) be legitimately copyrighted (but not their underlying mechanics). So one would
have to tread carefully in restating a set of rules. And of course, even if one
has the legal right to do something (e.g., indicate compatibility with
another company’s game), one nonetheless may be subject to legal harassment or
bullying by a company with deep pockets. One thing that the OGL did was remove
any uncertainty about potential legal harassment or worries about whether some
element of the game was copyright-protected or not. (For an excellent overview
of this matter, see this Electronic Frontier Foundation article.)
A lot of RPG
publishers are now abandoning the OGL. Even if WotC backs down and allows OGL
1.0a to continue (or modifies 1.1 so that it is far less restrictive) many
gaming companies are sensibly deciding that they do not want to be vulnerable
to future Hasbro corporate whims. (And it very well may be the case that WotC
does not back down and pushes on with OGL 1.1.)
As a player, most
of my time has been spent using Mythras over the past twelve years, with
occasional forays into other systems (e.g., The One Ring, Trail of
Cthulhu, Delta Green, etc.), none of which have been dependent on
the OGL. Among other things, I’ve been a sorcerer in a Young Kingdoms campaign
(which used Mythras’s predecessor, Mongoose’s RuneQuest II), a
Roman mystic in a Mythic Britain campaign, an aristocratic messenger in
a Mythic Babylon campaign, and a paleontologist in a Return to the
Mountains of Madness campaign.
But as a creator
and gamemaster, I’ve been heavily involved with Dungeons & Dragons
and related systems. Years ago, I got into the OSR in a big way and developed a
set of house rules for modifying Swords and Wizardry (the 0e
retro-clone) to give it more of a “swords and sorcery” flavour. Many of those
rules appeared in articles in Knockspell and Fight On! All of those
rules remain available at this blog (and were never offered here under the OGL).
Many of those rules were incorporated into D101’s Crypts and Things game
(which does use the OGL). (I hope that C&T rides out this storm and
continues to be available. It’s a great system!)
Also, despite
some problems here and there, overall, I like 5e D&D. It’s not
perfect – it still has too many fiddly (“exception-based’) rules for my taste –
but it’s the first “official” version of D&D since the TSR era that I’ve
been happy to run. (Making feats optional was huge improvement over 3e.) I’ve
been using it for my current Greyhawk campaign. And I thought that the
5e-derived Adventures in Middle-earth game was quite good. The Mirkwood campaign that I ran using AiME a few years ago remains one of my all-time
favourites.
But this latest
action by WotC has left a foul taste in my mouth. I already was put off by the
movement toward “D&D One” (or is it “One D&D”?), which struck me as
undermining some of the strengths of 5e D&D – among other things, by “hardwiring”
certain elements that I prefer to keep optional, e.g., feats and inspiration, into
the core game. Changing the OGL and wreaking havoc with 3rd party
publishers is just plain malevolent.
So … I’ve had it
with WotC. I won’t be buying anything from them for the foreseeable future.
(Not that I was buying much anyway – it’s been almost two years since I last purchased
a book from WotC. Most of my recent 5e purchases have been from 3rd
party publishers like Goodman Games.)
I’m not going to
abandon my current Greyhawk campaign. It’s been too much fun – and the
characters just made it to level 4! But I think I’ll be using Into the Unknown
as the rules base going forward (supplemented with a few 5e options for the
sake of continuity).
Aside from my
current Greyhawk campaign, my focus (as a GM) lately has been on the Against the Darkmaster system. I hope to run a sporadic VsD campaign set in Eriador
(Middle-earth) over the next few months. Aside from that, I plan to develop my
own setting over the coming year. We’ll see how that goes. (Of course, VsD
never used the OGL – and has a generous license for other publishers.)
Well that’s all
for now. It’ll be interesting to see what happens once OGL 1.1 is unleashed on
the world.
