I’ve been pretty enthusiastic about the power tabletop gaming has to bring people together. That’s never been more true than over the past week. Fans who bicker in forums over rules and which gaming system is the best have put their differences aside to unite against a common enemy: Wizards of the Coast.

Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) have owned the Dungeons and Dragons brand for more than two decades. Under their ownership, the brand released the 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions of the game, saving it multiple times from going under completely. But the real measure to their success was due to something called the Open Gaming License (OGL), which allowed anyone to use their systems to create their content based off of the rules of the game. This extends to other gaming systems, like Pathfinder, and even popular actual play media. Under the OGL, independent content creators could use 5e to make and sell their own adventures, content, play aids, and more.

Last week, documents that detailed plans to change the 1.0 OGL were leaked by various news outlets and employees of the company themselves. These changes were a result of external pressure from WOTC’s parent company, Hasbro, whose investors see the DnD brand as underutilized by the company (they made over 70% of the company’s total profits in 2021). Under the proposed revisions, Wizards of the Coast could take a percentage of any revenue companies make while using the OGL after a certain threshold. More importantly, they could take the content that you produce and use it for their own purposes: at any time, with no warning, and without your express permission. In other words, they were about to kill the very mechanism that created their vibrant and thriving community in the first place. 


There is a level of hypocrisy to the situation that is best expressed by the company themselves. In the very first page of the Player’s Handbook, there is a message written directly to the player. Within, it states that “above all else, D&D is yours.. the rules of the game… are nothing without the spark of life you give them.” In restricting the legal bounds of what players are allowed to create, explore, and play with, the 1.0 OGL changes are entirely antithetical to the ethos of the game itself.

What’s more, the company that sells a game where people team up to take down entities of overwhelming power for the good of the realm set themselves up as an overwhelming power threatening the good of the realm. Big mistake. In the aftermath of the leaks, the TTRPG community began organizing. Fans produced templates for phone calls and emails to the company, signed various petitions, and cancelled their subscriptions to DnDBeyond, which allows players to access and play through content virtually.

Throughout the biggest PR crisis Dungeons and Dragons has had since the satanic panic of the 1980s, Wizards of the Coast were silent. They banned discussion of the documents in their official Discord server, declined to publicly comment on the leaks, and postponed their livestreams to address the situation at all.

What’s worse, quotes from internal emails mentioned ignoring the uproar unless it had a provable impact on their bottom line. The DnDBeyond website cancellation page fully crashed on January 12th after fans decided to make said impact happen. This prompted the company to end their silence this past Saturday, when they published an article dated for almost 3 weeks prior to the day it was made available to the public. It’s filled with platitudes about community involvement and valuing the opinion of their players. Some community members rejoiced. Others warned that this wouldn’t be the end of the issue.

Whether the company decides to change or leave their Open Gaming License intact does not negate the fact that Wizards has broken over 20 years of brand credibility with their customers. Trust is an intangible currency, one that can’t be bought by simply pushing out new releases or more content. The damage isn’t irreparable, but it could take another 20 years until the community feels comfortable again or simply forgets. If the company is lucky, it’ll be the latter. Here’s hoping they roll a critical fail.

Updates to this article been added below to reflect recent actions made by Wizards of the Coast.

As of January 18th, 2023, Wizards of the Coast have released multiple articles backdated prior to their actual date of publishing. In a publicly released (and presumably revised) draft of the OGL, they outline creative rights for third party content creators, as well as claiming to make the new version irrevocable. Later in that same document, they give themselves the power to revoke these rights, as well as adding clauses for waived rights to a jury trial and class action lawsuits should the user agree to the license. The response has been consistent with previous sentiments expressed in this article.