Update on the OGL and #OpenDnD (Patreon)

Greetings adventurers!

I come to you in high spirits tonight because it has been a very long few weeks and finally, a very stressful chapter in our career as creators is coming to a close. I talked previously about the situation surrounding the OGL v1.1 and how terrible it would have been for creators like us. I'm not going to dwell on bad news though, because today I have extremely good news to share.

Wizards of the Coast have backed off on making any changes to the OGL.

I could hardly believe it myself, but in a statement released earlier today, Kyle Brink (Executive Producer of D&D) shared some information about the survey data they had received so far on their OGL v1.2 'playtest'. The information they had received was that people overwhelmingly wanted the OGL v1.0a, which has been the working license that creators have used for 22 years, to stay in place. Additionally, people stated that they wanted more content entered into Creative Commons.

In a somewhat surprising move, Wizards decided to act immediately due to the overwhelming nature of the feedback. As of today the OGL v1.0a is safe and the entirety of SRD 5.1 has been released under the CC-BY-4.0 license. This is AMAZING news for us at AB as well as creators across the industry.

I'm sure you have some questions so I'll do my best to answer some of the common ones. If you have any others, please share them in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer them.

What does this mean for the old OGL?

It means it stands, completely. There will be no changes to it and they will not try to deauthorize it. The license which has stood for 22 years and fostered a community of creators sharing work around it will stand.

What is CC-BY-4.0?

Creative Commons International 4.0 license is a very simple framework that designates proper usage of content that has been entered into it. It allows for remixing, reworking, altering, and anything else you could really want so long as you provide proper attribution. Proper attribution can be as simple as "This work uses SRD 5.1 content licensed under CC-BY-4.0".  You can read more about the license on the Creative Commons site.

Is the Creative Commons license revocable?

No. The Creative Commons license is not controlled by Wizards of the Coast, but by a third party non-profit. This means that once content is entered into the CC, there is no way to pull it out. It is there forever. The SRD 5.1 for 5E has already been entered into this license and it will now live there forever.

So does this mean we won?

Well... They won and so did we. (Sorry, I had to)

What about future content like One D&D?

This we don't know yet. One D&D is not out yet and there has been no discussion around an SRD for it as of yet. This does mean that it's possible that no SRD will be created for One D&D. If that's the case, then it will essentially create a walled garden when no third party can create for One D&D. The positive thing about this is that 5E's SRD now is open forever. That means that One D&D will have to compete with 5E and 3rd party creators if it wants to have a space. Basically they would have to make a better product than all of us can together. That's a tall task for any company.

So what does this mean for AB?

It means we get to keep creating for 5E. We previously stated that we were going to keep doing that for as long as we could and we stand by that. We're going to keep creating for 5E as long as we can. The license we use is now protected. We can keep making 5E content for a long time =) 

Does that mean no Pathfinder 2e content?

I didn't say that at all. I won't commit to a time frame just yet as I'm still learning the system, but you can look forward to our items coming in 5E and PF2e flavors in the future. We'll be releasing as much as we can for both systems. We really love Pathfinder 2e now that we've been trying it and we want to make things for it as well.

So what's next?

Well, we get a beverage of our choice and enjoy the good news. We take a day to feel some joy, then we get back to work like usual. We have so much we want to make this year. I can say with confidence that 2023 is going to be AB's biggest year yet and we can't wait to share it with you. 

I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to everyone in the community that took the time to share their thoughts on social media and on the OGL survey. You did so much to help this movement and we couldn't be more happy to see the kind of community support that we've seen in the past few weeks. 

I can't wait to show you what we're working on and I hope you all have an amazing weekend.

Always yours,
- Matthew & Fernando