Wizards of the Coast has issued a full apology, and promised transparency in future DnD OGL updates, saying it will share the new OGL 1.1 for public feedback before making any changes.
The D&D Beyond blog post released on Wednesday January 18, has a much more contrite tone than the statement put out five days ago. It admits “we got it wrong,” and says, “starting now, we’re going to do this in a better way: more open and transparent”.
Its author, D&D executive producer Kyle Brin, writes that the ‘draft OGL’ was “disruptive to creators and not in support of our core goals” and that by keeping silent for so long, “we hurt fans and creators, when more frequent and clear communications could have prevented so much of this.”
The new post assures fans and creators that their revenue and ownership of content won’t be touched by the updated DnD OGL licence and that their currently published content won’t be in any way affected: “That will always be licensed under OGL 1.0a.”
According to the statement, Wizards plans to go forward by publicly sharing its proposed OGL changes, then sharing and discussing the comments it receives, so it can iterate and improve before landing on a final version. It suggests this will follow a similar pattern to the One D&D and Unearthed Arcana playtests.
Its plans to release the proposed OGL 1.1 document “on or before” January 20, alongside a survey that’ll ask fans specific questions, and leave room for general feedback. The survey will run for two weeks, and Wizards will provide advance notice before it closes.
“This will be a robust conversation before we release any future version of the OGL,” Brin says.