(Sidenote: Why am I calling these news posts? They're not really. I mean, some of them do include some news, but others are just explanations, or random ramblings. Maybe I should just call these posts a blog, since that's what they're closer to. Or maybe something else, but not news posts, anyway. Eh, I'll think about it; I'm not going to make that change today, but maybe within the next few weeks.)
Since my last post, there have been at least three major developments. (Again, this will all be very old news by the time anyone else reads this, so maybe there's not much point in my posting about it here. But again, I'm posting about this here anyway. I can't claim to have a good reason to do so. I can't claim to have a good reason for a lot of things I do.)
One: Wizards of the Coast released a mealymouthed message essentially saying that they were delaying the release of their new "open" (not really) license, and that it would have some significant differences from the leaked draft. (While the message didn't say this, there was external evidence that their reconsideration was almost certainly in light of the number of people who had cancelled their accounts with WotC's D&D Beyond online service in protest.) They did say the new license would not include the terms in the previous license about Wizards having "a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use [content created under the OGL 1.1] for any purpose", or about third-party creators who made more than $750,000 gross revenue in a given year having to pay Wizards of the Coast a 25% royalty on the excess. They conspicuously did not say anything about the claim that the OGL 1.0 was no longer considered authorized, and did not address the vital question of whether that meant they didn't intend for anyone to make new products in the OGL in the future; the only part of their new statement that even tangentially related to this issue was that "[c]ontent already released under 1.0a will also remain unaffected" (emphasis added).
So... it seems pretty much nobody was impressed with this statement, and with good reason. At this point, despite (or in light of) WotC's continual refusal to be explicit about the matter, it seems very likely that Wizards of the Coast does intend to effectively revoke the OGL 1.0(a), and while lawyers in the threads I've been reading seem to generally agree that this likely wouldn't stand up in court—and that WotC wouldn't want the matter to go to court, because of what else they'd risk losing—it won't be addressed in court unless some third-party company makes a point of standing up to Wizards of the Coast and forcing the issue, and that doesn't seem likely to happen.
Two: Several significant OGL publishers have announced the creation of their own new games, albeit currently with unfinalized placeholder names: Kobold Press's Project Black Flag, Mechanical Muse's Cool Name Goes Here, MCDM's The Inevitable MCDM RPG.
Three: Paizo has announced that it's spearheading the development of a new open license, the Open RPG Creative License (ORC), and has invited other publishers to participate. Many other publishers, large and small, have taken Paizo up on this offer: so far, that includes (at least) Atlas Games, Chaosium, Goodman Games, Green Ronin Publishing, Legendary Games, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Rogue Genius Games, and a French company called Black Book Editions I hadn't heard of before. That doesn't mean all these publishers' game systems are going to be licensed under the ORC (Pinnacle, for instance, has said it's not planning on using the ORC for its most popular game system, Savage Worlds), but it's still very promising news.
These are just the biggest developments; there's been a lot else going on too. A lot of publishers are abandoning their D&D-compatible product lines entirely, selling all their remaining inventory at a large discount. (A statement by Troll Lord Games was particularly acerbic: "Step 1 continues: liquidation of all current 5e stock, never to be revisited again, in any edition".) It seems Wizards' new license, when it is finally released, isn't going to be "OGL 1.1" after all, but "OGL 2.0", for what that's worth, which is very little. Free League Publishing has announced it's developing its own open licenses (and updating and expanding its Year Zero Engine SRD).
So. At the time of the hard launch, there may not be Pathfinder content on the Wongery Game pages, depending on how long it takes the ORC to get sorted out and the necessary revisions to the SRD to be made to remove all WotC Open Game Content, but as soon as the ORC and the new Pathfinder SRD are out, there will be. (Well, okay, not literally as soon as; it'll take us a little time to write the content). The same goes for other systems that will be released under the ORC, and for Project Black Flag and the other new systems that are being created—if those are released under the ORC or another acceptable license, they'll be included here too.
Whether there will be Dungeons & Dragons content on the Wongery Game pages, at the time of the hard launch or thereafter, remains to be seen; it depends on the terms of their new license, when it eventually comes out. If I had to guess, right now I'd say very probably not. Well, very probably not for 5E content. One D&D content, when that system comes out, definitely not, unless there are some huge changes at Wizards of the Coast.
I said in my last news post that providing content for role-playing games wasn't the Wongery's main purpose. Which is true... but it was the Wongery's original purpose. Or rather, it was the original purpose of a lot of the content that ended up in what is now the Wongery. I started out in the 90s writing about some of these worlds as campaign settings for an original role-playing game I was designing. (I'd been creating worlds and creatures before that (I'd even been trying to design my own RPGs before that!), but I don't think anything I wrote in the 70s or 80s has made it into the Wongery.) Over time I eventually realized I had written a lot about the campaign settings and very little about game statistics or rules, and it occurred to me that I was much better at writing what in RPG circles is called "fluff" (flavorful descriptions of setting, characters, and other elements, as opposed to the "crunch" of the actual rules) and that it would probably a better idea to just focus on that... and that it would make a lot more sense to just leave it open for use in any RPG system. And then hey, why limit it to role-playing games? Why not open up my imaginary worlds for use in computer games, and novels, and any other media anyone might want to use them for? And so the Wongery was born.
(I mean, it's not off the table that I still may try to create my own role-playing game someday. I like creating things. But if I do, it's going to be entirely separate from the Wongery. And of course it'll be under an open license, probably the ORC.)
So anyway, while it may now have other purposes, the Wongery had its origin in role-playing games. I've been a role-player for a more than four decades. My old first-edition D&D books are still on my shelf. I have over the years spent many thousands of dollars on role-playing game books. So while it's true, as I said in the last news post, that the current upheaval in the role-playing game world isn't going to affect the Wongery beyond influencing what games we include stats for in the Game space, it would be of concern to me even if it had no effect on the Wongery at all.
If I somehow had the money to do so, I'd buy Wizards of the Coast. Or, if Hasbro thought Wizards of the Coast was now too important a part of their company and refused to sell (likely, if Wizards of the Coast makes up as significant a proportion of their profits as some accounts allege), then, if I'm dreaming big anyway and imaginging I had the funds to do it, I'd just buy Hasbro itself. (And then I'd separate Wizards of the Coast from Hasbro and mostly leave the rest of Hasbro to its own devices.) For years I've imagined what I'd do in this scenario.
Now, obviously this is never going to actually happen. Not a chance in Hades. I am fully aware of that. Wizards of the Coast is worth billions of dollars (after this catastrophe maybe it'll be worth slightly less, but not by orders of magnitude). Hasbro, of course, is worth even more. I am not, and never will be, a billionaire. Heck, in terms of my current bank account balances at the moment I'm barely a thousandaire. There is no way I would ever be able to buy Wizards of the Coast. This is pure fantasy.
Still, it's fun to fantasize. So let's continue.
What would I do if I did own Wizards of the Coast?
Well, for starters, I'd create a Wongery wiki for D&D content, separate from the Central Wongery but with similar functionality and accessible through the Wongery main page. (I'm not sure what I'd call it. The Wizardly Wongery, after Wizards of the Coast?) All the D&D monsters, characters, magic items, and other elements would be described there, released under the same licenses as the material in the Central Wongery. Yes, including the beholder and the mind flayer and the other high-profile "Product Identity" monsters. And eventually including obscure weirdo monsters that only appeared in one old issue of Dragon Magazine, and everything in between. Get them all out there. Let people use them. Heck, there's no reason not to throw in Magic: The Gathering content too. Have articles about Ravnica and Zendikar and Ikoria, and licids and slivers and thrulls and vedalken. I mean, I wouldn't buy the company just to get my hands on Magic: The Gathering, but if I've already got it (in my weird impossible fantasy in which I've somehow bought Wizards of the Coast), I may as well make use of it. Let's include content from Amazing Engine and Star Frontiers and Dreamblade and Alternity while we're at it, and any other old games Wizards of the Coast still has ownership of that might have some neat IP associated.
(Though, speaking of Magic: the Gathering, I think one thing I'd want to do with that is let players print and sell their own custom cards, through a program like DriveThruCards. The custom cards would have a different back and wouldn't be tournament-legal, but people could of course use them all they wanted in casual games—obviously people are printing their own cards anyway, but I think if there were a user-friendly and officially sanctioned way to do it, people might make use of it, even if it meant Wizards of the Coast getting a cut. But I might very well be wrong. This might be a terrible idea. I'm far less familiar with (and less attached to) Magic: the Gathering than I am D&D. Which means I should probably shut up about Magic: the Gathering and get back to D&D...)
But how would D&D make money, if I'd be releasing all its IP for anyone to use? Well, first of all, just because material is freely available online, and other people could print it themselves if they wanted to, doesn't mean people won't still buy print copies—or even nicely formatted PDFs—if they like them enough. Paizo releases basically the entire contents of the Pathfinder core books as Open Game Content, and plenty of people still buy those books, both in print and in PDF form, so they've shown this path is viable. But then also my plan wouldn't be to entirely release it to the public domain, after all; it would be to release it under the same licensing terms as the Central Wongery, which means I'd still be able to license it out for movies or video games, or if I had the money, to make movies or video games myself. (And I guess under the completely counterfactual conjecture that I had the money to buy Wizards of the Coast, I'd have the money for that too.) Speaking of which...
Why does Hasbro keep wanting to make a Dungeons & Dragons movie? "Dungeons & Dragons" is a ruleset; to people not familiar with Dungeons & Dragons it doesn't mean much beyond generic fantasy. (True, a lot of elements of what now comes across more or less as generic fantasy originated with D&D, or were at least popularized by it, but most of those elements have now spread and been used widely enough that that genie can't really be put back in the bottle.) Even if people like a Dungeons & Dragons movie, if it's just generic fantasy it won't tell them anything about Dungeons & Dragons that they don't already know, and won't give them any reason to start playing. And to people who are familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, settingwise it still doesn't mean much except generic fantasy, with a few specific additions like owlbears and rust monsters. Don't make just a Dungeons & Dragons movie; make a movie about one of the specific D&D settings. Make a Planescape movie. A Ravenloft movie. A Spelljammer movie. A Dark Sun movie. And so on. But these aren't household names, to the extent that Dungeons & Dragons is. No, but that's why you make them household names by releasing movies and video games about them! Give people a reason to get interested about D&D; tell them about these exotic settings; tell them something about the game they don't know. The possibilities are endless. A movie about the Faction War from Planescape... although rather than focusing on the factols and the major players, it focuses on the effects of the war on a few ordinary citizens of Sigil (well, this being Planescape "ordinary" is relative), the way most movies about real-world wars tell the stories of ordinary soldiers instead of world leaders. Hey, with cinematic universes being all the rage, think of a series of Ravenloft movies focusing on different domain lords and then gradually having them come into conflict and crossing their storylines... (Okay, I guess with certain very rare exceptions like the Grand Conjunction, domain lords can't really interact in person, which might somewhat diminish the impact of crossovers. Well, it was just an example.)
(There's another Dungeons & Dragons movie coming out in March (that is, the following March after I'm writing this article; it'll have already long been out by the time anyone reads this after the hard launch); I guess if it's a huge hit and brings loads of attention to the brand and makes a lot of new D&D players then it'll show maybe I'm wrong about this and releasing a Dungeons & Dragons movie wasn't such an uninspired idea. Well, we'll see. By which I mean, by the time you're reading this, we'll already have seen. Maybe I'll turn out to have been completely wrong and look like an idiot, but that's the price I pay for... writing news posts, I guess. (Or blog posts; see second paragraph.))
I'd also consider releasing multiple versions of D&D; many of the various editions have been different enough that for all practical purposes they're different games. Some people still prefer the old 1E/2E "Advanced" Dungeons & Dragons? (Okay, yes, 1E and 2E aren't the same thing, but they're close and there's a limit to just how many hairs we can split.) Fine; release that as "D&D Classic". (Well, not exactly that, but a game similar enough to keep the flavor but with some updates, like some of the current OSR games.) There are people who still like some version of the old Basic D&D? Okay, release a new version of that, too; that's, uh, let's tentatively say "D&D Lite". (Or does that sound condescending? I have not spent a lot of time thinking all the details through, since this is all just an imaginary thought experiment that is never going to happen anyway.) There were people who loved fourth edition? (I'm not one of them, but such people exist.) Okay, release a version of that as "D&D Tactics"? And... I'm not going to spend a lot of time now thinking of similar names for third-edition and fifth-edition derivatives, but yeah, of course we'd have those too. And of course these would all be released under an open license, and they'd all have separate tabs in the Game space of the Wongery, so everything would have stats for each version.
(Would this dilute the brand and end up severely cutting into profits? I don't know. Maybe. I'm no businessman. I'd think since the actual sales of books would be a relatively minor part of the company's income, relative to other media, that the initial overhead of publishing multiple rulesets might be overcome by the goodwill and attention to the brand. But I could be totally wrong here, and it might be a financial disaster. Look, like I said, all of this is never going to happen, so it doesn't really matter.)
And of course I'd canonize certain characters and creatures from my home campaigns, because that's the sort of thing you can do when you own an RPG company.
But one thing that didn't ever factor into my fantasies about buying Wizards of the Coast until last week was releasing D&D under a new license, because I didn't think it would be necessary.
There will likely be some revision before the hard launch, but at the moment, the Licensing page on the Wongery includes the following text:
Given that nobody but the Grandmaster Wongers saw the Licensing page before I edited it—or if anyone did stumble across it somehow, they'd be very unlikely to have remembered it—I probably could have gotten away with leaving that out. No one would ever have known that I'd once said the content was released under the Open Game License if I hadn't admitted it. (Well, okay, it would have been in the page history but first, how many people would have checked the page history of the Licensing page?, and second, if I'd really wanted to expunge the record I could have tampered with the MySQL databases and modified the history.) But I wanted to be honest about the matter. The reason I bring this up, though, is to show that—like pretty much everyone in the role-playing game industry—I'd assumed the OGL was irrevocable. Once I said something was released under the OGL, whoops, that's it! No takebacks.Open Game License
Prior to March 26, 2022, this page stated that the content of all articles on the Wongery wiki mainspace was also released under an Open Game License, and was considered Open Game Content. This is no longer the case. The text of certain pages in the Gaming namespace is explicitly released under the Open Game License (or will be, once the Gaming namespace exists), but this is not true of the mainspace articles.
However, since the Open Game License is irrevocable, that means that technically the original text of any mainspace articles created before March 26, 2022 is Open Game Content, as are any edits to those articles made before March 26, 2022. But articles posted after this date, and any edits after this date, are not Open Game Content, though they are still released under the CC-BY-SA license.
So it never occurred to me that Wizards of the Coast might try to revoke it.
So now? Yeah. In the bizarrely improbable counterfactual that I could somehow buy Wizards of the Coast, I'd absolutely release the D&D rules under a different, more explicitly irrevocable license. In fact, maybe I'd release it under the ORC, because why not?
Okay, I promise in the next newsblog post I'll write more about things that are actually happening or have some chance of happening and less about wild flights of fantasy with no basis in reality.