Yes, a lot won't be clear until we actually see OGL v1.1. So this is more information, which is nice, but also still a lot of unanswered questions we won't have answered until sometime next year. *shrug*

Nerd Immersion has an interesting video on this topic. You guys can check that out if you’re interested. Plus probably other YouTubers have done videos on it too.

Quote from WoodsGirl0402 >>

Nerd Immersion has an interesting video on this topic. You guys can check that out if you’re interested. Plus probably other YouTubers have done videos on it too.

My issue with many of the YouTube videos on this topic is that they are often 90% pure speculation disguised as fact and 10% "unnamed sources." Even one of the latest Nerd Immersion videos insinuated that WotC was laying off D&D Beyond employees over their opinions of the OGL (glossing over the fact that would have meant they somehow laid them off over a year before WotC had bought D&D Beyond!!!). So, I'd take any YouTubers opinion on these things with a whole shaker of salt. Personally, I pay much more attention to the 3PP who actually make a living off of the OGL than people who make a living off of YouTube views. Social media and YouTube algorithms encourage certain kinds of content, so those who do well through social media and YouTube tend to play into that sort of content, intentionally or subconsciously.

Morrus at EN World has had very reasonable takes on it, for example, informed by working with the OGL professionally for several editions now. Wolfgang Baur at Kobold Press, etc. They have worked with this license for longer than most WotC employees have been at WotC, and definitely longer than YouTubers have been posting videos about it. So when they speak about it, they know what they are talking about.

I personally am following this closely.

it feels wrong, but I will see where this is going.

Considering that this initiative is being spun out at the same time as the rest of the things driven by how D&D was apparently, and I quote "under-monetized"... I'm not hopeful for this...  It seems like a great way to squash creators enthusiasm for doing things with the system: in much the same way Bethesda shot themselves in the foot the (multiple) times they've tried to "monetize" people's mods.  Simple fact is: WOTC needs players, players ultimately don't need WOTC; they make things untenable, people will just move on; it happend once with pathfinder, and it can always happen again.

As things currently stand, a lot of the fear over this is unwarranted - these kinds of things are incredibly dependent on the exact language of the terms, and we won’t know those for quite some time to come. 

Now, once it is released, I am sure we will have a similar situation to when Wizards purchased D&D Beyond and updated the Terms and Conditions for use - a bunch of people reading the terms completely incorrectly and using their incorrect interpretations to spread confusion and misinformation throughout the community.  But that will be a bridge to cross when we get to it—it is not a bridge for now, when the only reliable information we have is a press statement on Beyond that gives broad strokes but little in the way of specifics.

Is speculation ever really necessary or helpful in any way at this point? We've got barely any idea what the updates will be until they happen. We can all yell about how the sky is falling then, but it just seems harmful now.

Since I'm not a lawyer, the new outline for the Open Game License is rather hard to parse. The main part that confuses me is the part about revenue cuts. If I'm understanding it right, the main big change to the license is that people who make $50,000+ on D&D need to report how much they make to Wizards, and the people who make $750,000+ on D&D need to give part of their profit to Wizards? If this is the case, then these changes hurt almost no one. However, it would be nice if someone could outline most of the new terms to me because I'm bad at understanding that stuff.

Anyways, the part of the article that I would key in on is this:

Bottom line: The OGL is not going away. You will still be able to create new D&D content, publish it anywhere, and game with your friends and followers in all the ways that make this game and community so great. The thousands of creators publishing across Kickstarter, DMsGuild, and more are a critical part of the D&D experience, and we will continue to support and encourage them to do that through One D&D and beyond. 

This is the part that caught my attention:

If you’re making commercial content, relatively little is going to change for most creators. For most of you who are selling custom content, here are the new things you’ll need to do:  

1. Accept the license terms and let us know what you’re offering for sale 

What are the terms?

Quote from IamSposta >>

This is the part that caught my attention:

If you’re making commercial content, relatively little is going to change for most creators. For most of you who are selling custom content, here are the new things you’ll need to do:  

1. Accept the license terms and let us know what you’re offering for sale 

What are the terms?

My guess is that they'll be pretty minuscule, but a clearer explanation by Wizards still would be a bit nice. However, they did say that the base parts of the license are staying, so I wouldn't get too worried about this just yet.

Based on what's written in the announcement, it sounds like if you are making content that you plan to sell, you're going to need to register with Wizards to receive clearance. This is entirely normal under copyright law. I have to deal with this kind of thing all the time in my work. So they're going to create some process by which you will register as a content creator, that registration grants you clearance to sell derivative works. Part of that clearance requires that you self-report your revenue to them. When you break certain revenue thresholds, they're going to start asking for a cut of the action.

This all sounds completely reasonable. If someone is making over $750,000 a year from derivative works based on Wizards' intellectual property, why wouldn't they expect to collect a licensing fee? It's actually pretty incredible that this has gone on as long as it has without them asking for it.

They weren't ready to have this conversation, but "leaked" info and social media uprising putting a bad vibe over whatever metric WotC uses to assess the D&D brand has forced WotC to write a PR doc letting folks know it wants to introduce alterations into One D&D's OGL that will require earnings reporting from people earning significant revenue and royalty payments from the few (fewer than 20 currently, and I don't see that number changing significantly during the lifecycle of whatever they call One D&D) highest earning licensees.  

It seems petty to me; but part of me wonders if there's some sort of anxiety memo circulating WotC re: One D&D and the risk that however One D&D may be managed causing "another Pathfinder" (kinda like what ENWorld was trying to do with whatever they called that thing they came up with for 5e).  Having royalty terms may make designers who truly see themselves as competing with "mainstream" D&D (because One D&D disappoints or frustrates for whatever reason, maybe that evil "monetization" or maybe something else) from investing in the development of a competing system.  Though Pathfinder went back to a prior edition, and I don't think the intent is to govern prior editions, but I'm not going to read anything more closely until there's something actually released on this front beyond change is coming and it's going to be all right memos and doomsayers videos locked in a struggle for engagement metrics and advertising bank.

I'm curious if "static electronic files" will include static HTML files.

This is either a stupid question, or something more people need to be talking about and I don't know which. But I, along with countless others, make handmade polyhedral dice--primarily for a D&D audience and marketed as such--for a living, or as a side business. Nothing read in this announcement is clear about where WotC is drawing the line when it comes to 3rd party content of other mediums than gameplay supplements or PDFs. For things like stuff you'd find on Drive Thru RPG, this does seem to address and clarify that those will likely all be unchanged experiences.

But what about the Kickstarters I've backed or Patreons I've pledged to for tangible rewards highly focused on (if not explicitly and singularly made for) D&D use? Things like .STL files for models I can print at home, or even the printed models themselves? Dice and die spinners--including the Pixel Dice that have software meant to integrate naturally with platforms like DDB or Foundry VTT? In that latter case, it's impossible to confuse: these things are intended for Dungeons & Dragons usage. 

But I could keep going; what about shirts, keychains, decals, mugs, all things that bear notably D&D-centric designs? A mug with an image of a stat block in D&D format, being quirky about how the drink is a potion that gives +1 to your movespeed. A t-shirt produced by a small time artist featuring an owlbear in the design's art. Literally all of DozieDemos' (gorgeous) shop.

So many people, including myself, rely on the D&D fanbase for income. Sometimes our only source of income, as is the case with myself. The dicemaking community is huge, the art community has always been huge, and the lack of any and all acknowledgement of those forms of products in this announcement is not putting my nerves to rest. The closest they come is saying that things like minis were "never meant to be included" in the OGL. So what does that mean?? Does that mean the lack of issues us creators have with this mediums will continue? Or does this mean we've been getting away with something they didn't intend for us to get away with, and we should expect changes that crack down on those unintended products?

I already am thoroughly unimpressed with the playtest content for One D&D, I find it completely uninspired and uninteresting and full of changes no one asked for (and some that people did, but which still feel like they missed the mark in some cases). I had no intention to leave 5e to explore the new edition at all. And if I'm able to do that with a relatively unchanged experience, I suppose I can be content with that--but if the OGL 1.1 is going to retroactively apply to prior editions of D&D and subject us to anything it may change, and my worst fears here are correct in that my livelihood would consequentially be under attack, WotC might be consciously executing their fan base. And at what is probably its peak of popularity, which is wild.

Edit: Also, while the vast majority of us will never be the ones making over the $750k that has us paying direct royalties, and thus, it completely will not affect me personally either way--I can't help but feel there's something off about that. On the surface it's seemed fine and like it makes sense, but after thinking about it too long, I realized that if a game like Monopoly was played on a livestream with the kind of size and influence as Critical Role, I... can't envision Monopoly asking for royalties. The exposure their game is getting from people (for free) watching other people play it would be the tradeoff, I'd think. However, I'm far more tentative with this speculation, because as it doesn't affect me, I'm sure there are aspects I'm missing. But I don't know, something about it feels off and inappropriate and I can't quite put my finger on it. Might just be me though.

I don't think WotC can make a claim to numbered polyhedrals.  There's a whole industry beyond the dice makers who use numbered polyhedrals in their non D&D SRD OGL world.  It would be like trying lay claim to flipping a coin.

Miniatures get a bit dicey.  I think the smart companies tend to avoid D&D names outside the SRD.  That's why WizKids makes Beholder minis but other major mini makers at best make a floating tooth eye thing and call it something different.  I know Heroforge avoids going afoul names outside the SRD.

I don't think they'll be collecting royalties from actual play productions, like CR started as.  Though CR is a lot more than (publishing house, animation producer, a philanthropy whose 990s I've yet to look at but have questions).  How the relationship between this bigger CR and WotC goes forward? Well I'm sure they're having that discussion (maybe under the dreaded NDA), though wouldn't it be interesting if CR just said, "You know what? Pound sand we're going back to Pathfinder or going to give our love to The Fantasy Trip because Steve Jackson just seems to understand the gaming biz better than whatever you all have evolved into, and the game's easier to play around with our theatrics"?

Lastly, Monopoly is owned by the same company as WotC.  Again, nothing has been said about going after actual play performers, at least by anyone who knows what they're talking about.  However, Monopoly is a tightly held brand that doesn't care for 3rd parties making use of it without a licensing agreement.  This has affected grocery chains and fast food vendors, big folks.

Interesting, and I appreciate the insight/thoughts. Had no idea Monopoly is owned by WotC, but for the sake of my example, I guess pretend I used an unrelated entity lmao.

Even if actual-play productions and polyhedral dice are safe, I'd still very much have questions and concerns regarding merchandizing on a small-artist level. Everything from artist-made designs on products manufactured by RedBubble, to fully handmade crafts made 100% by a single artist in-house (many folks have booming businesses of handmade dice bags and such). There just doesn't seem to be sufficient clarity on where those things fall in this OGL blob. 

Right now, I could draw a beholder and have RedBubble print me a tshirt with that as the design. Just based on what I've seen as someone who frequently browses such wares, I could probably even label it a beholder shirt and not encounter any sort of cease and desist from a big company. That has allowed some small artists to absolutely thrive in the fandom. To have crackdowns on that front would absolutely shake a huge portion of the community.

A great example to point to is the creator Yaniir, primarily a dicemaker who is extremely popular, and has recently been creating a line of designs for shirts. There is a design for every core class, featuring text that harkens to class specifics; this one is the druid design, featuring the text "Wild Shape", as well as "WIS" and "D8 Hit" and "Bst Shp Hrs = 0.5 LV" -- while none of those words on their own (except arguably "wild shape") are trademarked necessarily, combined they are Very Clearly a design based on the Specific Dungeons & Dragons class of Druid. 

I guess I just can't help but worry because I want to live in a world where nothing's wrong with small artists (like myself, I have skin in this) being able to produce merchandise like that without having to worry about some authoritarian business demanding said artists be "registered" with them and report their earnings like WotC is the IRS or something. Hopefully I'm worried over nothing.

I've got a few problems with the announced policy. The major issue is the fact that they seem to be shutting the door to any VTT other than roll20, fantasy grounds, and the upcoming WoTC contender. The secondary issue is that this sure looks a lot like a stepping stone to them taxing or taking over the market that is currently filled by 3rd party merch and content.

I play on foundry VTT in the game I GM and I would absolutely not want to go back to roll20. However, as it stands currently it simply wouldn't be possible for foundry, or anyone else other than roll20/FG, to host onednd games since doing things as simple as recreating character sheets would be in violation of the new rules. The main dev of foundry recently stated publicly that they could not run onednd in foundry under the announced OGL. Anything more interactive than a pdf is not allowed without a license, even for content that would otherwise fall within the OGL. 5e licensing is problematic enough in that you have to jump through hoops to get the content that you own into other VTTs, with onednd even that won't be legally possible. This change by itself is cause for significant concern. It is very much in our interest as consumers to have competition in the VTT space.

The second reason for concern is the implication of reporting all dnd related merch and adding royalties for some. This looks a lot like a middle step towards taking over areas currently filled by 3rd party producers. The issue is that requiring reporting from all people who make money off things arguably related to dnd is a big step towards figuring out exactly what aspects of the market WoTC wants to move into officially and what prices competitors can offer/people are willing to pay. It's the same thing amazon's done in a huge number of areas. They get info on what's selling and for how much then just make their own version. They can then either have it sell for just a little cheaper than small producers could possibly compete with or swamp the smaller producers with marketing or easy access. While it's not inherently nefarious for a company to want to take over revenue streams we do get a say in how this plays out. I personally would prefer to give my money to smaller producers who make merch, develop VTT software, and produce adventures while also giving money to WoTC for source books and official adventures.

Here's hoping WoTC will prove all these concerns to be unfounded. I certainly hope they'll just license onednd to foundry, owlbear rodeo, above VTT, tabletop simulator, talespire, and all the others out there. I also hope they won't move in on the fantastic small dnd producers that make up so much of our community or shut down kickstarters with small profit margins. We shall see.

Quote from NH23 >>

I've got a few problems with the announced policy. The major issue is the fact that they seem to be shutting the door to any VTT other than roll20, fantasy grounds, and the upcoming WoTC contender. The secondary issue is that this sure looks a lot like a stepping stone to them taxing or taking over the market that is currently filled by 3rd party merch and content.

Correction: it requires separate license agreements for VTTs that implement the SRD. A VTT that provides a mapping function, a dice roller, chat, and a log, isn't doing anything that requires the OGL.

Quote from Sayeth >>

....but the small-time VTT makers like Owlbear Rodeo will probably lose out....

 I fail to see how Owlbear Rodeo will lose out here.  They don't use the SRD at all.  They don't sell maps or other content. They are not D&D specific.  None of this is a criticism of owlbear.  That's the VTT I use for the game I'm running, and I'm quite happy with it.  But it has nothing to do with the OGL.