A Fork in the RPG Road
The antics of Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and Hasbro with respect to the Open Gaming Licence (OGL) has created a rift, a fork in the road when it comes to roleplaying games (RPGs). WotC/Hasbro is trying to walk back their actions, but the damage appears to have been done. And a second path is now emerging for players to choose.
A Recap
A new copy of a game licence, named OGL 1.1, was leaked from WotC. It contained a number of new provisions, but the main areas of public concern was the attempt to “deauthorize” (sloppy, sloppy language. The word you want is “revoke”) the existing OGL 1.0a, and that WotC would be able to lay claim to community-created IP without attribution or compensation. It was purported to be a “draft”, but the form and presentation had all the appearance of a final version ready for execution by counterparties.
The RPG community basically blew up when the news broke. Publishers and gamers made it clear that there would be consequences for this action. There were many on-line comments sections filled with declarations that people were going to cancel their D&D Beyond subscriptions, and stop buying any WotC product. Paizo, Kobold Press, and others made it clear that they were not going to abide by this. Paizo has now committed to create a new, truly open gaming licence.
The result was a pair of parallel activities. WotC tried to walk back what they had done. And Paizo took the lead in creating a new direction for RPG rules and content.
The (Sorta) Walkback
In an attempt to undo the damage, and try to retrieve their brand, WotC changed their story. But it didn’t happen immediately. In the mean time, D&D Beyond subscription cancellations apparently flooded WotC servers, taking them down for a time. No official numbers have been released, but some estimates place the number of lost subscriptions in the tens of thousands and growing.
As a result, WotC spoke up. They attempted an “apology”, and then laid out something that looked vaguely like a plan of sorts. First they said that their changes wouldn’t affect anything already released under OGL 1.0a. The new licence would apply to material for the upcoming D&D One release and anything created after the supposed “deauthorization”. They said they would remove the provision to claim the IP of others. But they also said that they were going to consult with gamers and other publishers, and get feedback on the new licence before putting it into effect.
What WotC didn’t do was explicitly state that OGL 1.0a would continue to be available for use for new content. Instead, it was clear from their statements that the new licence wouldn’t invalidate any existing product under the current licence. The implication is that new material would have to abide by the new licence. Basically, they weren’t revoking OGL 1.0a, but they kind-of are or want to. Besides, legally, they may not be able to revoke it for extant material anyways, so it doesn’t matter what they say or do in that regard.
What WotC has done, and committed to, is essentially nothing. Their statement about OGL 1.0a continuing to apply to existing material is simply them acknowledging the law: the combination of consideration (indirect or otherwise) plus partial performance on a perpetual contract makes it irrevocable, whether or not it says so explicitly. Their supposed “we need to get your feedback” makes no commitment to actually do anything with that feedback.
The community appears to be seeing through this little charade. Gamers are continuing to cancel D&D Beyond subscriptions. It isn’t clear if sales of WotC product have taken a hit, and that won’t be known until the next quarterly numbers from Hasbro are released. Our first to chance to see the impact might be the box office numbers for the upcoming D&D movie. But it isn’t just gamers that are taking action in this.
Enter the ORC
Paizo is the other large creator and publisher of roleplaying games. Their Pathfinder product has become one of the two “standard” fantasy roleplaying game systems. The original, now 1e, version of Pathfinder was based off of D&D 3.5. The new second edition (Pathfinder 2e) is claimed to be a new system, not based on any existing D&D material. It includes OGL 1.0a in their published materials, but Paizo’s position is that it is to allow creators to build other material using the Pathfinder 2e system, not that Paizo is using material under that licence.
In response to WotC’s new licence, Paizo is creating their own open licence, calling it the Open RPG Creative Licence, or ORC. Their plan is to create an independent, community-controlled organization to own and manage the licence, similar to the Linux Foundation. A key element of this new licence is that it will be irrevocable, not just perpetual and non-exclusive.
If ORC is adopted by a large enough community, this will create a split, a fork in the RPG community. The good part is that we may finally see some meaningful evolution in RPG rules and game mechanics. The basics of D&D, and how it works, haven’t changed much since D&D 3.5. D&D 4e was a bit of a mess, far too complicated, and far too much of having to look stuff up in tables. D&D 5e simplified things again, but it still does require a bit more look-up than some players would like. It isn’t that the “traditional” way is bad. But it might be nice to see some simplification in areas. One common complaint is on-boarding new players, and this is an area that could use some work.
In some ways, this split is simply a formal acknowledgement of the current state of fantasy RPGs. Since the appearance and growth of Pathfinder, there are already two different systems, albeit with some overlap in mechanics and concepts. The rise, and likely adoption, of ORC is merely stating what gamers already knew: some play official D&D, some play Pathfinder (and many play both).
The Road Forward
I expect the next couple of years to be a bit muddled as players and publishers begin to truly pick one side or the other (OGL 1.1/WotC vs. ORC/Paizo). Which will be more dominant in the short vs. long term is an open question.
The advantage WotC has is that they own the actual Dungeons & Dragons name, and I expect they’ll get more aggressive in protecting it. Let’s face it, we tend to think “D&D” even if we’re playing Pathfinder or some other system. While it technically isn’t a generic term that has fallen into the public domain, we treat it like it has. It’s like when people talk about Kleenex or Tylenol, despite not actually using the branded product.
How meaningful that advantage is, and whether it will be enough for WotC to rebuild their brand integrity and goodwill, is up for debate. It is possible that use of “D&D” in a generic sense will fall out of favour. Anyone remember a time when you didn’t photocopy (or just make a copy) of a document, you xeroxed it? Xerox wasn’t just a name, it had become a verb, and it was common to hear it used when referring to the act of making a copy of something. But during the 1990’s, the term had disappeared from use, and people no longer xerox a document. Not all generic terms withstand the test of time.
I do expect to see two distinct camps: the Paizo side, governed by ORC, and WotC with official D&D and whatever licence they decide to adopt. I would expect the more open and permissive one to eventually dominate, in the same way that OGL 1.0a helped revive and grow RPG's in general. RPGs were not in a good place in the late 1990’s, and the state of TSR at the time reflected that. WotC buying TSR in 1997, and putting out the OGL in 2000, helped turn that around.
Where we’ll know the actual impact and direction will be on the shelves at our local gaming stores. The “winner” (such as they might be) will be the one that has the most prominence and has the better selection of supplements, expansions, modules, and other material. That will take time to sort out. And there will likely be more turmoil and drama in the mean time.