D&D Executive Producer Kyle Brink Offers Apology and Info on OGL 1.2
Dungeons & Dragons Executive Producer Kyle Brink apologizes and reiterates publisher’s previous stance
Over the past few weeks D&D publishers Wizards of the Coast has taken a critical hit when it comes to their reputation after their handling of the Open Game License (OGL); the legal framework governing how D&D rules and content can be used by third-party publishers.
The controversy began following an initial leak of an OGL 1.1 framework that would have drastically overhauled the existing 1.0 document and included new provisions requiring royalty payments, revenue declarations and signing over all legal ownership of content to Wizards of the Coast.
The resulting public backlash saw a massive outpouring of online anger, with numerous fans canceling their D&D Beyond memberships and signing an open letter demanding changes.
Wizards of the Coast later issued an apology on the D&D Beyond platform, with promises to roll back the offending updates and release a new “1.2 OGL” sometime in the near future.
Now Dungeons & Dragons Executive Producer Kyle Brink has weighed in the controversy, also offering an apology on D&D Beyond.
“We are sorry,” Brink said in the post. “Our language and requirements in the draft OGL were disruptive to creators and not in support of our core goals of protecting and cultivating an inclusive play environment and limiting the OGL to TTRPGs. Then we compounded things by being silent for too long. We hurt fans and creators, when more frequent and clear communications could have prevented so much of this.”
Notably, this marks the first time in months that a Wizards of the Coast employee has weighed in on the OGL controversy (previous responses on social media and D&D Beyond were all published without an author). Brink comes from a background in video game development, primarily working with the company NCSoft (creator of the popular Guild Wars games) before taking over as D&D Executive Producer in October 2022 after the departure of Ray Winninger, who had served in the position for more than four years.
The big takeaways from Brink’s post are as follows:
- An updated OGL 1.2 draft will be released on January 20th, 2023. The public and publishers will then be able to submit feedback via survey (much like with the One D&D playtest)
- No changes to video content. Streamers, podcasters and content creators on platforms like YouTube and TikTok will not be impacted by the new OGL. Their work will instead continue to fall under the domain of the Wizards Fan Content Policy.
- Merchandise sales unaffected. Changes to the OGL will not affect the ability to sell accessories, such as novels, apparel, dice and other merchandise.
- No changes to VTT content. Changes to the OGL will not prevent users from publishing content on virtual tabletop (VTT) platforms like Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds.
- No changes to DMs Guild content. Third-party content released on DMs Guild will not be impacted (it will remain under an exclusive Community Content Agreement that exists between Wizards of the Coast and Dungeon Masters Guild).
- Content under OGL 1.0a is unaffected. Any existing materials published under OGL 1.0a will not change.
- No royalty or reporting requirements. There will be no royalty payments of any kind, and users are no longer required to provide financial reporting.
- Users retain ownership of content. The new OGL will not include a license-back requirement that grants Wizards of the Coast ownership of third-party materials.
As with previous statements from Wizards of the Coast, Brink’s post is encouraging but will remain untested until the actual OGL 1.2 is released. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story as it develops.
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Cameron Nichols is a Senior Editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been playing D&D since the early 90s, when he was introduced by his older brother and cut his teeth on AD&D 2nd Edition. Since then he’s played virtually every RPG he could get his nerdy little mitts on (including a weird Goth phase in the early 2000s when he rocked Vampire: The Masquerade pretty hard). His favorite D&D campaign setting is the Forgotten Realms and his favorite character to play was a Half-Orc Barbarian named Grug (who was unfortunately devoured by a gelatinous cube).
