"Universe Beyond" Support By Independent Creators

With the planned Universe Beyond releases for the Warcraft and Star Wars settings (+ others in the future if those do well), I am curious how independent creators will be able to support the WotC products with their own releases. I've bought a few things on DMs Guild and Drivethru RPG in the past that I've enjoyed. 

- If new classes are released in WotC products, is it correct supporting subclasses can't be published for them unless the class is added to the OGL? Even if WotC doesn't create any new classes for the Star Wars book (though I certainly hope they do) I can see them using the upcoming Psion as the baseline for a Force-focused character. 

- For setting lore, adventures, bestiaries, etc... will those IPs be able to be supported by independent creators on DMs Guild?

Thanks very much for any insights.

Offhand I doubt that the people licensing their IPs to WotC for these are making the agreement open-ended enough to allow for that. Seems more likely it’d be a case-by-case deal for particular projects. So, most likely this won’t open up the door for full on supporting publications from independent operations going on the market, will probably have to stick with passing around homebrew pieces.

I wouldn't count on it.

Or else we'd end up with THAT inn in WoW, or an "Erase [insert canon part of Star Wars franchise that angers the Fandom Menace here]-" 3pp, let alone the legal issues with AI that's all over DMsGuild being multiplied infinitely once Disney sees them.

Yeah, there's pretty much zero chance Disney is letting one of their golden goose0 IP get that far out into the wild.

The DMs Guild guidelines already answers this question a couple times.

”Wizards of the Coast products that were created in collaboration with a third party cannot be used in DMsGuild products.”

”If a character is NOT the property of Wizards of the Coast they cannot be used in your DMsGuild product. This is typically when Dungeons & Dragons has licensed or partnered with other companies, brands or properties to create a special product.”

Notably, we have seen this term be invoked before - Exandria received official content and did not get added to the DMs Guild list, as is explicitly mentioned in their terms.  Absolutely no reason to think the same term will not be applied moving forward to Star Wars or other partnered brands.

That said, there still do exist options for content creators.  The easiest option would be to make a homebrew world with compatible vibes and release that content on DriveThruRPG or a similar site that allows third-party content not tied to official worlds.  Sure, it might not be Star Wars, but Legally Distinct Space Fantasy could still be applied to a Star Wars game, just as Legally Distinct Sword and Board Fantasy is applied already to existing D&D worlds.

If one wanted to release Legally Distinct Space Fantasy on DMs Guild, that arguably is an option as well under their terms.  After all, the terms define available content as anything official published since 2014 on one of the delineated worlds - including Greyhawk.  One could make the argument Infinite Staircase’s reboot of Barrier Peaks opens the door to the space faring world of that particular adventure, and make space fantasy Greyhawk content designed to expand on Barrier Peaks and totally not Star Wars *wink wink*.

This is a more risky option though, since Wizards retains a lot of control over what they allow on DMs Guild and might find using so two paragraphs of lore on a spacefaring civilization in an anthology to back door in an entire space opera product a bit of a stretch. 

Thanks for the responses all. Unfortunately this is what I expected but it's nice to have some additional details. Hopefully some nice homebrew communities will spring up around these releases.

The other problem too is that DM's Guild is being flooded by AI Slop so I doubt that there's a lot of third party IPs that would be willing to subject their stuff to that.

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

The DMs Guild guidelines already answers this question a couple times.

”Wizards of the Coast products that were created in collaboration with a third party cannot be used in DMsGuild products.”

”If a character is NOT the property of Wizards of the Coast they cannot be used in your DMsGuild product. This is typically when Dungeons & Dragons has licensed or partnered with other companies, brands or properties to create a special product.”

Notably, we have seen this term be invoked before - Exandria received official content and did not get added to the DMs Guild list, as is explicitly mentioned in their terms.  Absolutely no reason to think the same term will not be applied moving forward to Star Wars or other partnered brands.

That said, there still do exist options for content creators.  The easiest option would be to make a homebrew world with compatible vibes and release that content on DriveThruRPG or a similar site that allows third-party content not tied to official worlds.  Sure, it might not be Star Wars, but Legally Distinct Space Fantasy could still be applied to a Star Wars game, just as Legally Distinct Sword and Board Fantasy is applied already to existing D&D worlds.

If one wanted to release Legally Distinct Space Fantasy on DMs Guild, that arguably is an option as well under their terms.  After all, the terms define available content as anything official published since 2014 on one of the delineated worlds - including Greyhawk.  One could make the argument Infinite Staircase’s reboot of Barrier Peaks opens the door to the space faring world of that particular adventure, and make space fantasy Greyhawk content designed to expand on Barrier Peaks and totally not Star Wars *wink wink*.

This is a more risky option though, since Wizards retains a lot of control over what they allow on DMs Guild and might find using so two paragraphs of lore on a spacefaring civilization in an anthology to back door in an entire space opera product a bit of a stretch. 

 Not to mention there's plenty of space-themed 3pp, like MHP's Dark Matter, and Avantris's upcoming Neon Odyssey.