OGL’s Architect, Ryan Dancey, Starts Petition To Preserve OGL 1.0a
Ryan Dancey, one of the co-creators of the OGL 20-odd years ago, has started a petition to help preserve the license in its current form.
Garnering almost 7,500 signatures in a single day, a new petition from Ryan Dancey calls upon Wizards of the Coast to support the OGL v 1.0a. Dancey created the petition in the wake of Wizards of the Coast’s continued silence on their proposed OGL changes.
It seems ironic that the company that started the OGL in the first place is being called on to keep doing the thing that helped spread their footprint as wide as it is today, but that’s where we are.
Ryan Dancey’s OGL Petition – “Hasbro, Please Take No Action Regarding The Open Gaming License v1.0a”
The petition reads as follows:
The worldwide community of gamers who use open game content licensed with the Open Game License v1.0a represents a two decade success story.
The Open Gaming License was used to create a shared space of intellectual property including the rules of Dungeons & Dragons at a time when the tabletop roleplaying game market was in crisis.
It succeeded.
Today, Hasbro, the owners of Dungeons & Dragons via their subsidiary Wizards of the Coast is planning to deauthorize v1.0a of the license.
We, the signatories to this petition, are asking Hasbro to take no action with regard to v1.0a of the Open Game License. Do not attempt to deauthorize or revoke it.
We ask that Hasbro recognize that millions of people have invested their time, their resources and their creative power into open game content and projects that use open game content and that any attempt to alter the fundamental licensing system which enables that would bring great harm to the community.
It will also bring great harm to Hasbro itself. The effects of the proposed changes have already generated tremendous chaos and fragmentation of Hasbro’s customers, and those effects will magnify and become more powerful if the company proceeds with its current plans.
Our ask is simple: Please make a public statement that neither Hasbro nor Wizards of the Coast will attempt to deauthorize or revoke the Open Gaming License v1.0a.
This comes as a result of WotC’s proposed changes. Which make one thing very clear. The community wants open gaming. Or at least the idea of open gaming.
And will go to great lengths to preserve it.
See and sign the petition right here
