So there has been a great video on Youtube (search Nerd Immersion if you want to find it), and now some discussions happening on Twitter. But honestly, third-party creators are such a tiny proportion of the D&D community that I doubt WotC would change their corporate strategy in response to them. So it will honestly come down to the average player, who doesn't know about or directly interact with the OGL. So considering the the DMsGuild and D&D Beyond will be completely unaffected by the fate of the OGL, would you actually factor it into your choice to adopt OneD&D?

I feel like this issue has been addressed officially already.

We will continue to support the thousands of creators making third-party D&D content with the release of One D&D in 2024. While it is certain our Open Game License (OGL) will continue to evolve, just as it has  since its inception, we're too early in the development of One D&D to give more specifics on the OGL or System Reference Document (SRD) at this time.

I don't use third party content, so it has no bearing on whether I use 1DnD or not. 

That being said, I do highly support the existence of the OGL, and hope they continue to have something like it.  I don't use third party content only because I prefer to make up my own things when needed, and I find the official stuff covers most of my needs anyway.  But I think the OGL has overall been very good for the game.  And I do send people to third party content when I think it will be good for them, because I want to support the creators in my own way. 

Companies have to protect their IP.  That's just the reality of the system we live in.  Whatever I might feel about that, I understand they have to work within this system.  The OGL was pretty revolutionary when it came out and we've gotten a lot of cool things from it.  But WotC is going to have to always evolve, as they say.  They might control it more.  They might make you sell your content directly though them for a cut of it.  No one knows yet.  But WotC has to know the OGL is good for them in some variation.

Third party sales are a very small piece of the sales pie.  I don't think they want to spoil the whole thing just to grab that last bit of cash.  They'll make more money on movie merchandise than all the third party books have ever made.

Any speculation right now is just that. If they change something and get it wrong, they will lose money.  This is the same as the micro transaction fears.  No one can make us buy 1DnD.  We can all keep playing 5e, or Pathfinder, or anything else. I'm content to wait and see. 

That's definitely the official non-answer to the topic. It's still unclear if WotC will stick to the 5e/3e OGL or try again with the 4e GSL.

I don't know if I would play 1DD were there no Open Gaming License. However, we only have rumors and speculation so far, and Wizards of the Coast executives explicitly told several companies that there will be some form of Open Gaming License for 1DD. So yes, it is possible that the OGL will modified and allow less room for some forms of homebrew, - which would be a bummer - but removing it completely is pretty much off the table at this point.

Edit: I just made a thread about Nerd Immersions video in case anyone wants to see that.

I mean.....  Are they going to stop people from posting their homebrew online?  That's doomed to fail.  Most of the 3rd party stuff I use is for subclasses and crafting/magic items right now. I mod my own monsters from established ones as needed.

And another video Here from Treantmonk isn’t as much the sky is falling. But it’s too soon to tell as the vague response fro WotC and the actions that follow could go so many ways  Edit: oops was thinking of a different topic when I grabbed this video  not really about the OGL  sorry

Not sure if there will be the OGL as it is now or a modified erosion that could be better or worse 

Quote from ThriKreenWarrior >>

....The vague response fro[m] WotC... The actions that follow could go so many ways...

 Wizards response to this wasn't nearly as "vague" as some make it out to be. They explicitly stated that they would continue to support third-party homebrewers. So, unless their definition of supporting something means "to ban and disallow it", then some form of the Open Gaming License is definitely staying. As you said, it is well too early to decide that the sky is falling. Especially when it just flat-out isn't.

Haven't yet resorted to third-party sourcebooks, but I'm quite interested in some of the upcoming stuff. OGL content is essentially Skyrim mods of DnD that could stretch and prolong the game to infinity, blocking that in any way is the dumbest thing they could do, so I doubt they will.

It would be foolish in the extreme for Wizards to get rid of third-party content.  Third-party content is an expansion to D&D they don't have to do a single goddamn thing for, a way for the game to appeal to audiences Wizards will not, cannot, serve while still drawing them in and causing core book purchases.  Every time a popular fan show like Critical Role, Dimension20, Dungeon Dudes or Fool's Gold makes a third-party sourcebook for their work, new people get into D&D in order to make use of that awesome book.  Every time Hit Point or Kobold Presses make a new rules expansion or exotic setting book, players that previously may not have played often or at all says "THAT is it.  THAT is the thing D&D has been missing.  NOW I can play", and they do just that. 

It allows D&D to hit a release cadence Wizards could never match on their own, and even better it's an opt-in release cadence.  You don't have to care about third party books, no matter how popular they are.  Example: I don't give one single fat frog **** about Strongholds & Followers.  I hate when DMs try to turn high-level games into Kingdom Simulator, politics games bore me spitless - but that doesn't mean there's not a huge following for that sort of thing, and Colville cashed in by serving a niche that Wizards would not or could not support.  People often feel pressured to buy every 'Official' D&D book, especially non-adventure expansions, because those are the core of the game.  But because third-party content is explicitly opt-in in a way Wizards Official Books can't ever be, people can release an effectively infinite number of them and Wizards doesn't have to care.  People who want them are served, but to use them they all need to make core game purchases.  Nobody can use their Grim Hollow books properly without owning a PHB at the bare minimum.

The OGL is one of the soundest decisions Wizards has ever made, and I say that as a person who hates this company.  Wizards can die screaming in a fire the same way they've forced several of my favorite games to die and they can take their garbage card game with them, but props where they're due - inviting the rest of the world to piggyback on "The World's Greatest Role Playing Game" and create books, resources and products tailored to their interests is one of the strongest decisions they've ever made.  Not only business-wise, but the whole idea speaks to the core of D&D.  The OGL is the shitty business personification of "D&D belongs to you, the player, and whatever you want to make a reality in your game is OK by us."  It is Wizards exhibiting an ounce of respect for their customers for the first time in their filthy money-grasping existence and aligning the business with the ethos of the game.

I hate Kingdom Simulator, but Matt Colville doesn't, and he made a cool book that people who love Kingdom Simulator can use to play their game.  I bought a crazy Crystalpunk book on a lark before Cyberpunk 2077 released because I ******* love that sort of shit and I thought it'd be neat to have a D&D version, and these folks made one.  Keith Baker got one Official Wizards book, but has since released two more whole-ass books that Wizards can't/won't do for people who love Eberron.  Critical Role similarly released a whole-ass setting book for their original continent.  None of these things hurt Wizards in the slightest, and even the crunchiest of sewer-coated Business Yaybo hearts can understand that a thriving third-party ecosystem like this is a massive driver for core sales.  It's part of why they were talking about D&D's stratospheric brand recognition in The Other Meeting.

There is no chance the OGL disappears.  It may be revised, yes.  And shitty corporations like Wizards are so averse to saying literally anything that might be taken as a Promise that they will never say "Yeah, we're keeping the OGL, don't worry" because their evil paranoid soul-sucking lawyers would slap their evil paranoid soul-sucking Businesspeople across the mouths for Saying Shit where someone might be - and brace your sphincter, I'm about to use one of the most absolutely godawful horrible curse words in all of Businessdom here.  No, really - I'm about to make the Business People in the readership reflexively shiver in horror and cross themselves before saying an extra prayer by the bedside tonight.  You ready?  Is your body ready?  Here it goes... - someone might be

LIABLE

for it.

That's all this is.  Businesspeople dodging LIABILITY the way goats would dodge a Tyrannosaurus if Tyrannosauruses still existed today.  They know better than to turn the OGL off, but God strike them dead where they stand if they will say that - or, in fact, say anything at all - in a form or forum where someone might hold them LIABLE for it.  That's simply Not How Business Is Done(TM).

My campaign wouldn't be what it is without third party books, and I genuinely can't imagine a world where I would want to stick exclusively to published material. Insane. Unhinged. I'm on the fence already with some of the changes they've proposed in the UA playtest. The game ran slower, even with veteran players who are quick as hell at adopting new systems. It was less fun and less intuitive, things that Just Make Sense™ in 5e are now suddenly bogged down because of the changes to OneD&D. It's not looking like a good system at the moment, and if they mess with third party publishers on top of that, I will be for 5e what all those other people are for 3.5. I will dig my heels in, bunker down, and happily continue to play the system I think is better in perpetuity.

Literally made an account to vote on this.
Getting rid of OGL is a terrible decision and will only lead to the same pain and suffering that was experienced around 2008.

Ignore these lessons at your peril.

Frankly, Nerd Immersion doesn't know what he's talking about. A lot of what he's saying is baseless speculation, hearsay, or completely wrong. The document that he's reading through clearly has a major bias against WotC and frequently gets details wrong. He even admits at some points that he hasn't done proper research on this topic and that people should educate him on the parts that he's unfamiliar with. 

WotC cannot get rid of the OGL (Open Game License). That is legally impossible. They published it, it's open content, and it will never stop being open content. Once something becomes open content, it is permanently open content (like how everyone can make movies with Dracula or Cinderella in them). They published the OGL over 20 years ago. The 5e SRD was an addition to it that came out around the start of the edition. None of that can be taken away. It's an open license to use their IP. It would be illegal for them to try and take it away. It's free to use and always will be. 

It's unknown whether or not they will publish a OneD&D SRD (Source Reference Document). They could even try to make a new gaming license (like 4e had the GSL or the DMsGuild has its own license). But ultimately these would not be problems, because from what we've seen of OneD&D so far, it would be very, very easy to publish 3rd party content for OneD&D using the original OGL and 5e SRD. 

The sky is not falling. WotC will not and cannot get rid of the OGL or 5e SRD. From what we know, it will be no harder to publish 3rd party content for OneD&D than it is for 5e. Wizards of the Coast cannot force people to use the DMsGuild license or a new OneD&D license over the 5e SRD. They can incentivize it, sure, but having multiple options of how to publish your 3rd party content is a good thing. 

In 2 years, quote me on this. If the sky has fallen and the OGL or SRD has somehow been changed so much that it's much harder or exploitative to publish homebrew content for OneD&D, use my words against me. However, if OneD&D is backwards compatible (which it looks like it will be), then you can still easily make 3rd party content for it. 

I like Nerd Immersion a lot, but I think he's done a disservice with this video.  There is no cause for fretting over this.  As many above have pointed out.

The OGL will always work for 5e, and by extension pretty much all of 1DnD.  No one can stop you from making fan content for anything if you don't sell it (or try to pretend it's official and cause consumer confusion.)  Third party creators aren't making a dent in WotC profits.  They are more likely to help increase sales.  Which is the reason the OGL exists in the first place. To let other people take the publishing burden.

Honestly there are some changes they might possibly make that would actually be beneficial to creators.  If they created tools to let third party designers upload their creations to DDB and sell them on this platform for a cut, that would be massive.  A creator could start making profit immediately.  Players could browse for content that's fully integrated into their DDB experience.  There would be much greater visibility and likelihood of someone buying a new class, monster, or entire sourcebook.  

Seems like Wizards shoukd go the other direction, far from ending the OGL to encouraging it more, and allow paid access to third party content here on dndbeyond. For instance, I’m probably going to run “Pirates of the Aetherial Expanse” from Ghostfire Gaming at some point and I’m sure most of my players will want to use dndbeyond to make characters. Sure, we could “Homebrew” the third party stuff but I’d rather support the creators by paying for a dndbeyond expansion and save myself the trouble. Wizards would then take a cut of someone else’s creative work and all they have to do for it is manage a database they’re running anyway. Seems like a no-brainer. 

I suggest searching Nerd Immersion on YouTube and watching their video on this topic to get a better idea of why that's not a reasonable answer.

It's not like you can tell highly placed executives who make decisions based on charts and wonky "analytics" that something is actually super important to most end users. They don't care, they KNOW they're smarter than everyone else because they get paid more, and high pay, to them, is a sign of being smarter than everyone else, including customers, and even when they're wrong, they're just going to sneer and say "move fast, break sh*t" as if that justifies decision no one asked for and every customer told them was a bad idea. 

We don't know who's proposing the bad idea of ending the OGL. We don't know what internal Wizards conversations about it look like, and I'd bet $5 that people working at Wizards/Hasbro have been threatened if they leak anything about it.

Also, so far as I can see we're not seeing the Brendan Mulligans and Matt Mercers of the world say much about the topic, which is curious.

No, this is kicking accountability down the road. Them saying they're "evolving" the OGL while not giving specifics is the opposite of addressing the issue

Quote from Head_Protector >>

I suggest searching Nerd Immersion on YouTube and watching their video on this topic to get a better idea of why that's not a reasonable answer.

I have watched the video. Most of it is just wild speculation based-off very few actual sources. In general, it is not advisable to trust someone who says they have high-up sources giving them information and then refuses to name any of those sources. And yes, D&D is under-monetized, because Wizards of the Coast isn't making nearly as much money off it as they could. And maybe the email Wizards (is supposed to have) sent to producers is a bit suspicious, but that doesn't mean that the world is suddenly ending and that the sky is suddenly falling.

Anyways, you did inspire me to make a thread about the many flaws in Nerd Immersion's video.