Dungeons and Dragons, without a doubt, is the most popular tabletop game. Its creative systems combined with its open-ended world and infinite choices in the hands of the players made it extremely popular to those who like it, especially as Nerd Culture became more popular and socially acceptable to enjoy. Wizards of the Coast, however, saw their success and decided to cash in on it, which resulted in them spectacularly shooting themselves in the foot. 

In the year 2000, Wizards of the Coast, commonly known as WOTC, created the OGL, Open Gaming License, which allowed people to create, publish, and sell their own royalty-free content that was compatible with D&D 5E. This meant people could make their own content for the game, nicknamed Homebrew by the community, then make a profit off of it without having to pay WOTC any royalties. This obviously made the community extremely happy, as this kind of opportunity hasn’t really been done in any kind of TTRPG before. The OGL made things like Pathfinder, a TTRPG game that was compatible with D&D, allowed to exist legally without risk of a lawsuit. Almost every single D&D player will play a homebrewed campaign at one point due to the fact that if somebody makes up their own D&D story, it qualifies as homebrew. Anything not made by WOTC is homebrew, making 97% of D&D content homebrew.

WOTC then saw people using the OGL, and how successful homebrew was, and decided to make money off of their communities creativity. Ever since December of 2022, there had been talks of revisiting the OGL and making some changes, but it wasn’t until the beginning of January 2023 that the proposed changed OGL was leaked to a writer/game designer named Linda Codega at io9. 

The revised version of the OGL showed extreme changes that many people were upset about, to say the least. Had this new OGL come to pass, it would have invalidated the old OGL and made it legally irrelevant and made it so that WOTC had to be notified about/receive a report about any monetized content. Any products that used the OGL and earned over $750,000 per year had to pay WOTC a royalty fee of 25% (20% if funded via Kickstarter) for ANY INCOME beyond that point and WOTC would have been able to use all OGL content however they wanted regardless if they made it or not. It also stopped D&D NFTS/Blockchain and allowed termination of discriminatory content. That last one sounds good in theory, but Wizards of the Coast would be the ones deciding what qualifies as discriminatory, and they don’t exactly have a great history with those kinds of situations.

This understandably made the entire community extremely upset, especially considering the fact that there were people genuinely making a living off of making and selling their homebrew content using the OGL, meaning WOTC was willing to force people into a troubling financial situation if it meant they got to have a few extra dollars in their wallets. When the proposed changes first showed up, it immediately went viral within the community and the outcry grew. The consequences, in a matter of days, made themselves very much known. Over 60,000 people signed an open letter to WOTC and the parent company, Hasbro, saying they hated the changes, forcing WOTC to see how much people wanted this change to stop. One major developer, Kobold Press, saw this new OGL and decided to leave D&D permanently and create their own TTRPG system. And they weren’t the only ones. 

Critical Role are a group of voice actor friends who began streaming their D&D games in 2012 on Greek & Sundry, and then transitioned to their own Twitch streams in 2019. They are the ones credited with D&D becoming as popular as it is now. However, news came out hinting at them potentially abandoning the game altogether. They released a statement in response, and while they never said anything outright, corporate speak is all about saying things without actually saying them. The statement reads, “Critical Role has always supported creators and game development in the tabletop space. We stand by our industry peers as well as anyone who takes a risk creating a new system or developing an original idea. The beauty of gaming comes from the opportunity to share inclusive, diverse, and compelling stories from a wide spectrum of creators. That’s exactly why we launched our own game publishing company a few years ago- because we believe that broadening the field of creators boosts the entire industry. The success we have experienced is thanks to the passion and interest of the greater tabletop community and we commit to fostering an environment that allows everyone the opportunity to easily share the stories they wish to tell. –Critical Role”.

 Many took this as a sign that Critical Role was going to remain independent from WOTC, and will further push their own publishing company, which would inevitably end up in competition with WOTC directly. Considering just how much of a lifeline Critical Role is to D&D, this would absolutely cut WOTC off from a major place of its own success. Although, this is mostly speculation that seems to be in the ballpark of correct.

Paizo, D&D’s main competitor, announced plans to create their own Open RPG Creator License, aka the ORC. The license was created as a way to secure the TTRPG worlds future after WOTC suddenly acted out, and Paizo immediately took action. Paizo said that from the start ORC was planned to be open to all third-party developers. While WOTC is choosing to leave its OGL alone, Paizo has said they are still publishing ORC. This makes it so that if WOTC ever tries something like this again, all of its customers can easily make the jump over to Pathfinder, Paizos game, if needed. 

D&D, since its release, has given nerdy people a place to be creative and play with others who enjoy the same things they do. When WOTC let people make their own content in 2000, they earned the loyalty and trust of many people who had already enjoyed the game even when you couldn’t make money off of it. WOTC deciding to make a payday instead of indulging creativity shows how they chose their own gain over their fanbase, and the scarring reaction showed what can happen if companies choose money over fan approval. Many companies have done that before, and the results showed similarly to this. Disney and Netflix canceling all their animated projects has sparked a huge reaction amongst people who initially enjoyed them. CEOs and large companies need to stop favoring money and their own monetary gain over their fans’ approval, or the fans, the source of their money, will leave them behind.