So, right off the bat I want to make a disclaimer here that I'm not any sort of expert or authority on this. I'm mainly absorbing information about this topic through the D&D social media community.
Here's the basics: Wizards of the Coast is planning on announcing a new version of the Open Game License. The OGL was originally published with 3rd edition and established 3E as something akin to open-source software, though in published RPG book form. The general elements of 3E were free for any other game publishers to use and to create content for. If you wanted to make a monster book for D&D, you could publish it without needing permission or paying royalties to Wizards of the Coast.
There were a few things that remained restricted - you couldn't put out an adventure about Beholders or Mind Flayers - monsters that originated with the D&D IP - and you had to change the names of spells like Bigby's Hand to things like Arcane Hand to essentially scrub any copyrighted stuff. But you could make fully compatible content.
When 5th Edition came out, they extended the OGL to apply to it. As such, once again for the last 9 years, publishers have been able to put out their own content.
Now, however, it looks like WotC is preparing to publish a new OGL which will be more restrictive - it will require those publishers earning over a certain amount to pay them royalties, which also means that they'll require strict earnings reporting.
I don't know all the nuances of what will happen because of this. One thing that's interesting to note is that the original OGL was announced as being basically irrevocable - that users of the license were entitled in perpetuity to ignore any future OGLs they didn't like - something that almost seems like future-proofing for just such a scenario.
The general discourse here centers around Hasbro (who own WotC) pushing to squeeze more money out of the brand, but in doing so, stabbing basically an entire industry in the back.
I will bring up one note, though, in WotC's defense, that this may have been in part inspired by attempts by heinous people to use their brands and associated IPs in terrible ways. For example, a company calling itself TSR (the publishers of D&D prior to WotC, though this is not the same company) was publishing a new version of Star Frontiers (TSR's old sci fi TTRPG, many parts of which were reintegrated into the D&D Spelljammer setting) that had profoundly racist elements (I won't repeat them here, but suffice it to say that it broke humanity down into different playable races as if defined by a full-on Nazi). You could argue that the current OGL offers little recourse if someone makes a D&D supplement that is full of hateful, racist content, which I think WotC can legitimately argue would harm their brand.
But, it seems most likely that the biggest factor here is Paizo. Paizo publishes Pathfinder, which was built on the bones of 3E using the OGL and was popularly considered a preferably alternative to 4th Edition when it came out. Indeed, before 5E came out, I nearly joined a Pathfinder game (it never came together) and when I asked about why we wouldn't play D&D, the would-be GM said "well, no one really plays D&D anymore."
WotC has cited that they don't want to basically be supporting their competitors, though I think this sentiment flies in the face of the spirit of the original OGL.
TTRPGs as a hobby have become far more popular in recent years, and yes, 5th Edition has been a huge part of that. I think the philosophy behind the OGL was that a rising tide lifts all ships - after all, you get more people going into game stores and you'll get more people seeing and checking out more games.
I think that there's a certain worldview on the corporate side of WotC that would very much like D&D to be the only game in town, but I doubt that the creative side is interested in that - after all, Jeremy Crawford has said that he's constantly trying out new game systems, which seems a wise thing for a game designer to do.
It's unfortunate that this weighs down on some of the excitement about D&D that has been building around One D&D and even the D&D movie (that, shockingly, looks like it might actually be good? Or at least not gratingly terrible?)
So, WotC must know that news of this new OGL has gone over like a lead balloon, but given the absolute shitshow that is our late capitalist system, I'm skeptical things are going to all get better.
We'll have to see how things go down.
From my perspective, I think there's a lot of inertia with gaming groups. For example, I've wanted to run a Starfinder game for a while, but it's just so much easier to get people to run a 5E Spelljammer game instead, even if I'd like to run a game with a more explicit sci-fi genre feeling. (And I honestly have no idea how I'd convert our Paladin and our Monk to Starfinder classes).
So I'm a little skeptical that any other game is going to take over due to community outrage.
In an ideal world, we'd see a blossoming of the TTRPG scene, with D&D becoming just one among many successful and popular game systems (while there are other successful systems, nothing as far as I can tell comes remotely close to D&D's popularity). I'd also be relieved if WotC listens to this and revises their new OGL to fit in better with what the community wants.
But I also think it's important that we figure out what, precisely, we want. I don't have earnings reports for Critical Role or Paizo or anything. And I'm no lawyer - my instinct is that the OGL is old enough and established enough and very clear in its irrevocability that WotC can't really change the deal here, but on the other hand, WotC has the full might of Hasbro behind it, and sometimes fancy lawyers can make a simple case advantageously more complicated.
Really I think what sucks here is that WotC stands to lose a ton of good will from the community and the industry - and I genuinely don't know enough about that industry to know if the changes they are proposing are reasonable or not.
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