Open Game Licenses and Copyright in Tabletop Roleplaying Games: How Innovation Does(n’t) Breed Excellence

While D&D is far from the first or only TTRPG system, it is undisputedly the most well-known. With great fame, however, comes great third-party content built atop this system. “Modules” — stand-alone settings and adventures which augment or expand upon D&D mechanics (the “rules” of the game) and features — the settings and adventures in which the game takes place — are the most popular form of external content. Nowadays, media franchises such as Dimension 20 and Critical Role have also built massive followings for creating recorded performances using D&D mechanics and inspired settings.

To manage this outpouring of third-party content, Wizards released the Open Game License (OGL) with the publication of D&D 3rd Edition in 2000. This OGL was structured under a System Reference Document (SRD), a then-innovative take on how copyright might work in the world of TTRPGs. In SRDs, the original license holders of a given work systemize and present a clear list of those parts of the original material third parties are allowed to reference or use in their own published content, an idea spawned from the open gaming movement. With the release of OGL version 1.0, Wizards became the first to exercise this philosophy in the TTRPG space.

Wizards saw massive success after publishing their games under an OGL, with third-party content drawing the eyes of a wider audience to their once-niche property. While Wizards has flirted with more stringent licenses since, the return of the OGL in D&D 5th Edition (now in shiny 1.0(a) mode) was, for many, a return to a much-appreciated norm – but one that proved temporary.

With the announcement of the new One D&D in 2022, rumours and leaks of an updated and much more restrictive OGL 1.1 spread like wildfire among the TTRPG community. The rumours proved well-founded. OGL 1.1

One of the most controversial updates required creators to report and, in some cases, pay royalties when earning a certain amount of revenue. The new license also stated that it was the only “authorized license agreement,” implying that OGL 1.0(a) and prior, previously stated to be “perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive,” would no longer be viable. Even more infuriating to some was the limited scope of protected materials, which encompassed only “printed media and static electronic file formats” and leaving other forms of media confined to the realm of fanwork.

Although Wizards claimed that these new regulations would only impact the most major D&D module publishers, experts noted that, in practice, it may have a much wider impact. In response to the extreme backlash, Wizards eventually rolled back these preliminary changes. Ending with a whimper and not a bang, Wizards eventually opted to quietly publish their SRD for the newest edition under a Creative Commons license rather than changing the substance of the OGL.

This decision, made in light of content creators and fans alike uniting against the OGL 1.1, is bittersweet. After years of trying to create a model of copyright for TTRPGs, Wizards instead ended up fitting themselves under an existing copyright framework. Much like recent decisions such as Hachette v. Internet Archive, the OGL presents another example of unique copyright frameworks crumbling under practical stress tests. While copyright in TTRPG sphere doesn’t enjoy a broad body of legal precedent, more recent court decisions like DaVinci Editrice et al. v. Ziko Games imply that game mechanics are not protected under copyright laws, or at least must meet a high bar to prove their original character. These questions raise the questionL which aspects of the game are protected at all, and so subject to the Creative Commons license terms? Settings and characters, certainly, but mechanics (such as skill checks) still present a legal gray area. Fans and content creators might have feared the OGL’s potential to gatekeep the mechanical play style of D&D against third-party creators, but it seems unlikely that this licensing schema could have held up in court.

Was the backlash pointless, then? I don’t believe so. While the OGL may have proved unenforceable, the underlying shift in priorities from creative freedom to stringent IP protection belies the philosophy that the OGL was founded on. While attempting to both keep the licensing standards they pioneered and adapt to shifting corporate priorities, Wizards innovated themselves into a corner. To escape, they cut the Gordian knot by leaving the OGL behind altogether, unintentionally proving that permissive copyright frameworks created under proprietary control, regardless of intention, are unsustainable in the face of commercial corporate interests.

The opinion is the author's, and does not necessarily reflect CIPPIC's policy position.