03/02/2023
For those who haven't been following the D&D madness, let's talk about it for a minute.
Much of the content that makes Dungeons and Dragons so wonderful is because of a decision made 20 years ago. Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) owns D&D and published the base rules in a document called the SRD (Systems Resource Document). This was a "free" set of rules that enabled ANYONE to play D&D for free, and (more importantly) gave creators a set of tools they could reference in their custom content.
The other critical piece from WoTC (they own Magic the Gathering and D&D) is the OGL (or Open Gaming License). This is the license that gives creators the rights to use content in their own creations. If you want to create a D&D adventure and reference dungeons and dragons or any part thereof you need a license to do so. The OGL was where those rights were spelled out.
So, for 20 years creators have been free and secure in creating their D&D products and have helped to build a vibrant community around pencils, paper, and dice for all of us to enjoy.
At the end of 2022 Wizards (WoTC) decided to "leak" a new version of the OGL (license) to the public. Under this new license the "free and open" nature of D&D was gone. The collaborative spirit that brought us all together to build this community was destroyed by something more akin to greed.
The new OGL had a few major changes that caused upset in the community:
1. It removed the ability to continue to use the prior version of the OGL - potentially meaning that you could no longer release content that you had created under the prior license. So if you printed book that was created and published in 2008 under the OGL, you could no longer do so. It is unclear if WoTC could enforce this in the courts, but most creators in the space do not have a legal budget in their hobby or small business.
2. The new OGL gave WoTC irrevocable rights to use any of your content at any time for anything they desired.
3. The new OGL was revocable at any time, for any reason.
4. Your specific use of the OGL could be revoked by WoTC if they determine at any time that "hate speech" was used by you in the OGL supported content. The problem here is WoTC is a corporation, and they do not have any provision on what is considered "Hate Speech", under the OGL it is up to their discression. This is a dangerous precident to allow them to take. If they had a provision to base the definition off a third party that would have been more acceptable, as the specific qualifications of hate speech have evolved over time, so it is hard to specifically define in a static document. But they decided it would be them, and them alone to decide.
5. They added a 25% licensing fee to any company whose total revenue is $750,000 or more per fiscal year. While that sounds like a lot of money, what is more problematic is there is no business that can survive a 25% surprise tax on their income. The profit margins simply do not exist. Think about all those creators that you see. Maybe doing okay after paying all the other business expenses up to $600,000 of income, and maybe having a good income themselves at that point. Then they hit $750,000 and all of a sudden $187,000 goes to WoTC. At $749,000 it was zero, one dollar more and you are in the hole.
This created a feeling of betrayal in the community against WoTC. Keep in mind, all that is needed to play this game is pens, paper and dice. Wizards (WoTC) creates less than 1% of the total content in the ecosystem. There are thousands of people working hard to contribute to this game we play and in one winters day in 2022 their contribution was betrayed. The fanbase was betrayed. Not because WoTC created a new product that had everyone excited, but was not compatible, rather they simply said "all that effort you have put forth, that belongs to us."
This was seen as nothing more than greed on behalf of Wizards (WoTC) and a reversal of the community feeling and support we had received since Gygax created the first version of D&D, and that had been publicly licensed and supported for 2 decades.
About a month after the proposed license agreement was released the public backlash caused WoTC to reverse their stance on the changes and they did two things:
1. They moved the SRD from the OGL to Creative Commons. Essentially giving the ruleset to the people. They no longer can say who can or cannot use it. The creative commons license applies.
2. They committed to a new revision of the OGL that makes the current OGL irrevocable.
This was excellent and completely unnecessary, if Wizards had not messed with the system that had been in place for 20 years, and now I am not sure if they can be trusted. We are all (all the creators) in the same place. While we can continue right along as though we didn't hit the iceberg, we are all concerned about ever sailing Titanic cruise lines again.
What does that mean for Dragon Fodder and our fans? It means you will see more content. I expect that most of it will have a D&D slant to it, but you will also see non-D&D content. We will try to be as system independent as we can.
You may see Pathfinder 2e content here, or Dungeon Crawl, or some new system by "The Dungeon Coach" (great Youtube channel) or the system that Kobold Press is working on.
But rest assured, it all translates to fun at the table.