About Our 5e OGL Titles

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The OGL Situation in General

If you’re following tabletop RPG news lately, you know that the proposed Open Game License (OGL: the contract used to allow most 5th edition D&D 3rd party content) changes has dominated discussion like no other.  (Note: The OGL is the license that lets others publish the content. The System Reference Document (SRD) is a slightly stripped down version of D&D–there was an SRD for 3rd edition, 3.5, & 5th edition of D&D as well as many other games such as Pathfinder.)

In short, a couple weeks ago a new “OGL 1.1” by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) leaked out. It had many terrible (for independent/small creators) clauses, such as:

  • They/we must report OGL related revenue over $50K to WotC and pay a 25% royalty on revenue over $750K (that’s gross, not profit).
  • End the prior OGL 1.0.
  • Limit OGL products drastically (can’t use it to make video/web games, software tools, etc.).
  • They want to protect the brand from NFTs and disturbing content. Of course, the OGL prevented you from saying D&D or using the trade dress, so there is no real need to do this.
  • WotC can republish what you’ve created.
  • WotC could tell you to stop selling something with little notice.
  • The new OGL could change again with little to no notice.  (Ex: If they decide their profits are down this quarter, maybe next quarter they will lower the royalty threshold to 25% of revenue over $500K.)

Happily the community has been rightfully outraged by this.  I personally feel that a decent percentage (10? 30? 50?) of players & DMs want to make their own stuff on the side and have a path to sell or at least post it for others. And although many maintain that only 20-ish people/companies hit the $750k mark, I’d bet it is higher. Even if it isn’t, there any many who are well on their way to that goal.  (And because $750K is revenue, keep in mind you’d likely need that much to support the equivalent of just a few full time salaries.)  So even if the terms don’t affect you now, shouldn’t you support keeping them as open as possible?

Today, WotC released a statement that took back some of what was known from the leaks, but not other critical parts.  First, it needs to be clear the new  statement is full of lies. For example, a license kept under a non-disclosure agreement that you’re expecting people to sign within a week is not one that you’re “soliciting feedback” about. Here’s what they say they are changing in “OGL 2.0”:

  • No royalty or reporting requirements.
  • They still plan to protect the brand–of course.
  • They say they won’t have rights to republish what you create.
  • They say “educational and charitable campaigns, livestreams, cosplay, VTT-uses, etc., will remain unaffected by any OGL update” but also “it covers only content for TTRPGs.” Want to make a video/web game? Software tool? Non-static web page like a loot generator? No or uncertain.

But what they don’t say is more telling:

  • Nothing is mentioned if the terms of the new OGL can be changed again.  How can another publisher plan a product or line of products if they have to consider the royalty may change on short notice.
  • Because they don’t say they will allow the OGL 1.0 to remain, they still plan to de-authorize it.
  • WotC could still tell you to stop selling something with little/no notice.

These points, especially the first two, are critical. Step one for them is likely to make the OGL 1.0 go away.  Then in the new OGL they can always change everything else later.

Clearly the community needs to hold firm to not allow the OGL 1.0 to go away–or to have a strong contingency.  There are a few alternatives being planned such as new D&D-like game systems, other more truly open game licenses, etc.

5e Fiendopedia: Hidden Fey

Inkwell Ideas’s OGL Products

We’re fortunate in that most of our products, especially those that are our current better sellers & those that we plan to expand in the near future are system neutral and don’t use the OGL. Worldographer, Sidequest Decks, NPC Decks, and DungeonMorphs are all generic fantasy–good for any game system.  However, some older titles do use the OGL, and some of them do copy substantially from the System Reference Document.  Here is a rundown:

  • We made a bunch of Fiendopedia’s within a year of the 5e SRD.  These are small collections of creatures with 5th edition stats that we developed and great art.  Some had “official” versions made later that vary from ours, but others still don’t have official versions.  Each creature has a full page and is designed so you can keep adding them to a binder.
  • 5e Magic Item decks were one of our next projects. They mostly used the SRD text, except for one deck (Panderlyn’s Curiosities) which was all new content. These were done before the official magic item decks, but ours are better (IMO) because we have art for every item. On the other hand, if an item doesn’t have a picture in the book, the official cards don’t have art either.
  • We’ve also made 5e Creature Decks where we took the official SRD stats and put them on cards. (Like the magic items, these were done before WotC made official ones through another company. Again, I should point out that all of ours have art–the official ones don’t have art if it isn’t in the books which is a problem especially for animals.  On the other hand there are several creatures–mind flayer, beholder, etc.–we couldn’t publish.) We also made more decks with more creatures of our own. The official ones are in the “Aberrations, Fiends, & More”, “Beasts, Oozes, & Plants”, “Constructs, Giants, Humanoids, & Undead”, and “Dragons & Monstrosities”. A 5e NPCs deck is half official NPCs and half more we created.  And then we have four more decks of creatures we created–many of the same ones in our Fiendopedias.
  • Related to our 5e Creature Decks, we’ve also made decks of creatures from Kobold Press’s various monster books, under a license from them.  We just finished a Kickstarter last month to make more, and the PDFs of them are coming very soon with the printed decks coming in about 6 weeks.
  • And we’ve made creature decks for other game systems: Fate, Dungeon World, Pathfinder & 1st Edition “of the world’s best known RPG”. But even if the OGL 1.0 is successfully “de-authorized” these systems will likely continue to expand via new licenses.

Going Forward

Our 2023 & beyond plans were already set to be system neutral and unlikely to need the OGL.  Updates to Worldographer, and new Sidequest & NPC Decks are set to be our focus.  The OGL bru-ha-ha only reinforces that further, but we’re also happy to look at opportunities the new potential systems unveil!