More Than 15,000 Sign Open Letter to WotC Calling For #OpenDND
In the wake of WotC’s OGL 1.1 leaking, more than 15,000 creators, players, designers, and fans have signed an open letter to WotC.
Over the last two days, more than 15,000 people, ranging from TTRPG designers and publishers to players and fans, have signed an open letter to WotC, calling on them to stop their proposed changes to the Open Gaming License. These proposed changes leaked last week.
And yesterday the OGL 1.1 was made available in its entirety. Now, folks are gathering together to try and make their voices heard.
An Open Letter to WotC: #OpenDnD
The rhetoric in the letter is nothing short of dire. It opens as you see above:
“Wizards of the Coast wants to dismantle the tabletop industry.”
The Open Letter credits the Open Gaming License with “foster[ing] creativity and innovation in the tabletop gaming ecosystem” more so than any other element. Citing that the OGL allowed communities of creators to “collaboratively build upon the core mechanics and concepts of existing games,” which led to the state of the industry as it is today.
The main pain points of the letter are the actions WotC might take to unauthorize or otherwise revoke the OGL 1.0a, which has been around for more than 20 years now.
Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has announced an updated OGL (version 1.1)—an attempt to dismantle the entire RPG industry. This new license intends to completely revoke the old OGL, a perpetual license designed by WotC themselves to be irrevocable.
Nothing about this new license is “open.” It chokes the vibrant community that has flourished under the original license. No matter the creator, it locks everyone into a new contract that restricts their work, makes it mandatory to report their projects and revenues to Wizards of the Coast, and gives WotC the legal right to reproduce and resell creators’ content without permission or compensation. The new license can also be modified with worse terms or terminated at any time without any recompense by creators.
#OpenDnD
To combat this, the letter proposes #OpenDnD, “a rallying cry under which creators and fans [can] demand that WotC revoke the draconian 1.1 OGL.” The hashtag ended up trending on various social media platforms, at least for a little while.
You can read the Open Letter to WotC for yourself at the link below.
It’s worth mentioning that the letter linked above isn’t the only one being sent to WotC. Jon Brazer Enterprises has one as well, calling on Wizards to preserve the “symbiotic relationship between small publishers and [WotC].”
At press time, 15,716 had signed the Open Letter
