VICTORY! D&D WON'T CHANGE ITS OGL!

[DerVVulfman]

VICTORY!
D&D WON'T CHANGE ITS OGL!
Dungeons & Dragons will now be protected under Creative Commons

After three weeks of backlash by angered fans of the game, Wizards of the Coast announced that they abandoned their plans to alter the OGL (Open Gaming License) for Dungeons & Dragons, and placed a subsection of the published rules for the game under a Creative Commons License.  The OGL was evolved and refined when the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons was being developed, it having existed now for over twenty years, providing a legal framework to permit the creation of table-top RPGs of their own.

However, a stir arose when a proposed OGL license revised by Hasbro, the new owners of Wizards of the Coast, was leaked on the 5th of January.  This new OGL suggested an adversarial relationship, the story breaking even on NPR and CNBC. It would make claims towards ownership of content created by others who used their product, and even threatened pod-streaming of game news, events, or playthroughs.  Hasbro's acquisition of Wizards of the Coast not only meant ownership of Dungeons and Dragons, but Magic: The Gathering.

Due to the response by fans, Duneons & Dragon's new executive producer, Kyle Brink, issued a full-throated apology. This apology sharply contrasted his earlier response released earlier in the month. Well over fifteen thousand fans were very vocal about the direction the game was taking, Finally heeding the anger of the fanbase, the revised OGL was going to no longer change conditions of content ownership, and the content of D&D was made more open than before by publishing its rules and lore under Creative Commons.

This Creative Commons license makes the content freely available for any use. We don’t control that license and cannot alter or revoke it. It’s open and irrevocable in a way that doesn’t require you to take our word for it. And its openness means there’s no need for a VTT policy. Placing the SRD under a Creative Commons license is a one-way door. There’s no going back.

Is there fallout over the whole episode?

There were plenty of people taking to social media behind the #OpenDnD hashtag, stating they would no longer support what was then the most popular tabletop RPG. Others game developers stepped forward to offer alternative RPG systems, Warhammer being one of the more recognized which some gamers may have flocked.