Wizards of the Coast has apologised for its handling of its Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License (OGL) revisions, which caused a huge community backlash over the past week.
Details of planned revisions for an OGL 1.1 were leaked by Gizmodo, and Wizards of the Coast was immediately faced with an orchestrated pushback by fans and prominent community members over rule changes which would, among other things, require anyone making money through the use of D&D elements to report earnings to the company.
The original OGL, which was to be rendered “unauthorised” after the release of 1.1 according to Gizmodo’s report, granted non-Wizards of the Coast publishers relative free rein over the use and sale of content which utilised D&D’s existing elements.
In response to the ensuing fallout, Wizards of the Coast delayed the publication of OGL 1.1 as it sought to rework major elements based on community feedback. These changes would remove the leaked royalty structure and license back provisions “that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work”, and include assurances “you will own the content you create”. They would also explicitly only apply to TTRPGs (and not restrict the likes of livestreams and cosplay), and not impact content released under the original OGL.