I think a contributing factor to this ongoing OGL mess is Hasbro/WotC higher-ups conflatingĀ ādndā withĀ āDungeons & Dragons.ā
Weāre really talking about two things here. Thereās one thing: a tabletop roleplaying rules system for playing out fantasy-themed scenarios with dice, figurines, and character sheets.
And then there is THE FORGOTTEN REALMSĀ©, a proprietary fantasy setting featuring creatures like beholdersĀ©,Ā GithyankiĀ©, and the dreaded mind flayersĀ©, not to mention fan-favorite characters like Drizzt DoāUrdenĀ©! THE FORGOTTEN REALMS takes place on the continent of FaerĆ»nĀ©, on the planet TorilĀ©, which used to be called Abeir-TorilĀ©, which was the case until the dreaded SpellplagueĀ©--
You get the idea. From the perspective ofĀ āthe suits,ā theyāve watched DnD take off since the advent of 5th edition, as the game expanded beyond what was previously thought possible. What triggered it? The OGL, certainly, allowing people to make third-party content for the game (most of it not Forgotten Realms). Critical Role (also not Forgotten Realms) played a part. Probably, to a certain extent, sheer intertia. DnD, it turns out, is pretty good for playing fantasy-themed scenarios with dice, figurines, and character sheets. Incidentially, people sometimes pick-and-choose pieces of the Forgotten Realms(Ā©) to include in their games. Sometimes people even use WotCās first-party adventure books and tweak them to suit their needs.Ā
My sneaking suspicion is that the people at the top donāt really see it that way. To them, the visuals, the details, especially the Named Characters and Things, are one in the same with the rules system. The rules system is, indeed, quite secondary! Why, after all, would people be buying all these little WizKids DnD figurines, signing up for DnDBeyond, if they were not having canon-appropriate adventures in The Forgotten RealmsĀ©, in cities like WaterdeepĀ© and Baldurās GateĀ©?
To them, the OGL constitutes people being able to muck about and muddy the waters in their pond. Why, they might do things that cut against canon, possibly confusing readers who happen across them! This could be dreadful. This could damage the brand. And the brand is the Forgotten Realms and the characters, creatures, spells, and scenarios therein, all of which are ripe for further use in movies, novels, video games, comic books, NFTs, and other stuff.
You might say,Ā āHow does OGL content conflict with Hasbro/WotCās official releases? Itās not like a third-party is going to release a competing film, or something that could challenge their market dominance.ā You arenāt thinking like a corpo (thatās from Cyberpunk). Consider Nintendoās highly litigious stamping-out of fan content. Disneyās ironclad control over images of the Mouse. Neither have anything like the OGL, of course, but similar logic animates the DnD situation: things which couldĀ pose a problem should be stymied before they can ever becomeĀ a problem. An unsecure (from their perspective) OGL is a time bomb waiting to blow, with the potential for someone to make a lot of money using their rules (rules which, remember, exist in subservience to their copyrighted settings) in a way that undermines their careful image management.
So, I think thatās why they want to corral the OGL into something more secure, from their perspective. Why risk it, when the thing you want more than anything is a customer base that sees it the way you do, a rules-system and setting that cannot be unspooled from one another?
(If you want my other opinion, its that Hasbro is a publicly-traded company, and DnD is now a significant chunk of their revenue, and that meansĀ Line Must Go Up, or Investors Get Mad.)
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