OneD&D: What we know and our current plans. (Patreon)

Hey all!

Yesterday, I addressed one major elephant in the room, A.I. Art, and gave my official stance on it. Today, I figured I'd address the other elephant in the room, and that's OneD&D. 

What is OneD&D?

One D&D is set to be the 'forever' edition of Dungeons & Dragons, one that's fully integrated into the D&D Beyond platform (fully absorbed into Wizards as of 2022) and does away with the need for a sixth or seventh edition.

Basically, D&D will become an "app" that will have regular updates. And likely, there'll be some microtransactions involved with it, although to the exact extent of which we don't yet know.

Though a playtest version of One D&D is available to play right now, the official release of One D&D will arrive via three core rulebooks coming in 2024. 

So yes, we'll all have to buy the core three again. :eye-roll emoji:

Why are creators worried about OneD&D?

A lot of third-party creators, myself include, suspect that Wizards of the Coast will make it a lot harder to make content for OneD&D by altering the legal document we use to create content, the open gaming license (OGL). This is the document that I have to add to all my content to say, "Hey, I've got permission to make this stuff." Currently, the OGL doesn't restrict where I can post the things I want to post. That's why I can sell them here on Patreon, on my own website, Roll20, Kickstarter. etc. 

Wizards have said that it plans to "continue third-party support," but they have yet to clarify exactly what that means and is being rather coy when it comes to direct questions. 

I and others in the community suspect that they will make it so third-party creators can only post content through D&D Beyond. We think they will make it a bit like they do with DMsGuild now, where they take 50% of the revenue and own the content outright. 

I'm speaking from my own experience, but this is not a viable business model for the DMDave brand. Not only is 50% a huge cut of the work that my team and I do, but owning it outright—without them directly promoting it, mind you—is a bit of a violation. 

But isn't it their brand?

Of course! And they would hardly be the first ones to utilize such plans. In fact, Chaosium, the company that makes Call of Cthulhu RPG, does kinda similar to Call of Cthulhu. You can create content using their rules which they allow through their own version of the Open Gaming License, but all Call of Cthulhu content (despite the works of HP Lovecraft being in the public domain) has to go through Miskatonic Repository (their own version of DMsGuild) or has to be officially licensed through them, which there's no guarantee that third-party folks like myself will get. 

Now I love Call of Cthulhu's system. In fact, I prefer it over Fifth Edition. However, this restriction bars me from ever writing content using that system. Which is a total bummer.

So Wizards of the Coast may certainly clamp down on how and where third-party content built on their rules is posted. 

But that doesn't mean I have to use it.

What will happen if Wizards of the Coast restricts its OGL with OneD&D?

Unfortunately, I am not a divination wizard. But I do have proficiency in Intelligence (History), especially when it comes to D&D's history. And this isn't the first time Wizards of the Coast tried something like this. 

Back in 2008, Wizards of the Coast ended 3.5 and killed the OGL for the Fourth Edition. This made it so that not even the people who were currently producing their magazines, a little company called Paizo Publishing, could write new content for the system. So Paizo decided to take the existing 3.5 OGL and SRD and create their own game: Pathfinder. In fact, they touted it as "3.5 Survives!" 

According to a market report published by Roll20 in 2019, Pathfinder and 3.5 still own approximately 10% of the tabletop RPG market. That might not seem like much, but when you consider that Wizards of the Coast made $814 million in 2020 and they own half the market, that's a huge chunk of change. And if you've ever seen Paizo's impressive floor display at GenCon, you can see that Wizards is probably pretty ticked they missed out on that.

And let's not forget that 4e was a total disaster. Sure, it had some highlights, and frankly, I like a lot of what it put out, but it was the shortest-lived edition in D&D history (if you don't count 3.0), ending five short years after it started. Fifth Edition is the most successful edition in D&D history and has been around for nearly a decade.

Will this happen with OneD&D?

Again, I'm no diviner. But I suspect that this change is headed for disaster for a few different reasons.

1) Fifth Edition is an insanely popular edition, and a lot of people have just started to get into it. 

It costs $30 to $50 (or more) just to get the Player's Handbook, which is a lot of money for some folks. And to have the complete library, you can easily spend thousands of dollars (I know I have!). It's pretty hard to have to turn around and buy all new books. I don't know about you all, but I'm pretty annoyed already that I had to get Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse when I already had copies of Volo's and Tome of Foes, which had the same monsters in it (albiet with a few updates). 

Getting people to change editions is a difficult and slow process. 

2) They want to change the overall dynamic of how people can access the game.

If Wizards of the Coast does actually want to put it all through DNDB, they're asking a whole lot of people to get really good at a lot of technical things pretty fast. Granted, DNDB does have exceptional onboarding and design. But not everyone in the industry is a kid who grew up with the internet or a technical wizard. Sure, it's a digital age, but this is still very much an analog game. Even I, a PDF-making/Roll20-using guy, will admit that.

3) Third-party creators are major influencers.

2008 was a pretty different time. Facebook was still new, and Twitter was just born. YouTube was around, but many of the biggest influencers hadn't reached the height of their popularity just yet. 

I alone have 94,000 followers on Instagram and a massive mailing list. Plus, I have all of you. ❤️

Now, that might be a microscopic slice of the overall market but imagine all the other third-party folks out there that have similar, if not larger, fan bases. 

We aren't just people "making money on your brand," Wizards. We're out there actively evangelizing for that brand. None of us have our own core rulebooks, so we point new folks to you. And we keep them fed with new content that reminds them of how great the game is.

Now imagine if all of that stopped. 

Suddenly, all those YouTubers, Patreon creators, Kickstarters, etc. just said, "Hey, we can't make stuff for this new brand. So we're going to stick with Fifth Edition or whatever other Open Gaming License gives us the best possible deal?"

2008 already proved that this could be disastrous when 4e tried the same trick, and that was before the internet was what it is today. 

4) Somebody will fill the vacuum.

It doesn't take a business genius to understand how important the OGL was for the promotion of the 3rd and 5th editions. Sure, not all of the content is/was great, and Wizards is missing out on a tiny bit of funds by letting 3pp creators do their own thing. But if they make the dreadful mistake of restricting the open gaming license, here is what will likely happen:

• It's pretty difficult to get rid of the original OGL and systems reference documents. If it was easy, they'd have done it with 3.5. But not only is the 3.5 SRD still available, but you can also even get super obscure SRDs like the d20 Modern one, which is still in effect. Therefore, there's no reason that any of us 3pp folks will need to change systems at all. Likely, we'll just stick with 5e and keep doing our thing. Having recently surveyed folks on the mailing list, only 7.8% of 4,000 respondents (many of which aren't even patrons of mine) said that they will for sure change to OneD&D. So you can bet your booty I'm going to keep writing 5e content.
• Someone will become the next Paizo. The only thing that 5e needs to continue into the future is a set of core rulebooks. This isn't very hard to do; it just requires a 5e creator with the right amount of capital and inclination to do it. If you're wondering if I would do, let's just say that it's definitely on the table.
• Other companies will create less restrictive OGLs. And even if Wizards somehow finds a way to avoid all the legal headaches of unraveling 22 years of the open-gaming license and its associated systems reference documents, other rules sources will emerge that are more flexible. Already, Free League (the people who make Tales from the Loop, Aliens RPG, etc.) have a pretty badass open gaming license. Although I can't create stuff with Call of Cthulhu, Chaosium still makes their rules usable (the Basic Roleplay System). Fate also has its own OGL. And so forth.

Isn't this all just alarmist stuff based on conjecture?

Possibly. 

We could all just be playing the part of Chicken Little here. But the reality is that OneD&D is coming. Supposedly, the purchase of DND Beyond by Wizards was on the condition they create a new edition. 

As of yet, they haven't given us any clear answers on how the new OGL will work, which makes many of us suspect that they're going to try to change it.

We know through the higher-ups at Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro that they feel the D&D brand is "under-monetized." 

Already, Wizards is reaching out to larger publishers (names unknown) with Non-Discloscure Agreements (NDAs) likely to discuss the new OGL and award special licenses. These NDAs prevent these companies from saying anything.

Insider connections tell us that there are active protests at WotC's offices for people trying to keep the OGL in place and protect third-party creators.

And frankly... there's a historical precedent for all of it.

TL;DR

So the long and short of all of this is this:

I'm going to keep creating 5th-edition content. And if OneD&D becomes available for me to make stuff with without having to go through DNDB to do it, I'm going to make stuff for that, too. I think it sounds like a cool edition!

But if I can't, I will no longer serve as an influencer and promoter for Wizards of the Coast and will point folks toward whoever makes the next set of rulebooks, whether that's me or somebody else with the means to become the next Paizo. No disrespect to Wizards and everything they've done for me in the thirty+ years I've been playing the game, but I gotta protect myself, my family, and my contractors.

Thank you all for your continued support, and know that I really, really love this job, and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

 - Dave