The glaring issue between the 3.5 OGL and the 5.1 SRD

In my last column I took a tongue and cheek view of Grognards and their longstanding relationship with TTRPGS and Dungeons and Dragons. Feedback was relatively positive, but I did get into a discussion on the SRD 3.5 that has not been released to creative commons. And that got me thinking. Does this matter? And the answer is yes.

Here's the thing, Dungeons and Dragons has been a holding of various companies in the past. After self publishing the 1974 version TSR took over. Somewhere in the 90s content TSR was publishing was costing more than they were making as they released and paid for too much material. This prompted the sale to Wizards of the Coast (WotC). Wizards was the sole proprietor of D&D until 1999 when Hasbro bought Wizards. Corporate greed and concerns had been an issue for D&D for a very long time. However, something happened that was incredibly magical in 2000. Players got edition 3 and in 2003 they revised it to 3.5 edition. Without getting into the feelings of it the 3rd edition of D&D was extremely popular. People loved that game. But that's not the only thing that was magical. At that time employees that made it through both acquisitions decided to stand up for the game that they loved and Open Gaming License was released in 2000 in combination with the 3rd edition rules. Brian Lewis and Azora Law are responsible for the OGL. This made it so that people outside of WotC/Hasbro could create content on the game outside of those companies. And 3rd edition and 3.5 took off. Wildly popular. D&D as a company, as a holding was saved. They were making money again.

As much money as Hasbro was making they also had help in creating material. Paizo was a 3rd party publisher contracted to make content for 3 and 3.5. And they did. A lot of it. ANd they made some money. For whatever reason in 2007 Hasbro/WotC ended their contract with Paizo. In 2008 the wildly unpopular 4th edition came out. (I take a tongue and cheek view of 4th edition because people didn't like it. But a lot of game designers really appreciate and there are still people who play. It has merits.) Meanwhile, Paizo made their own game. Pathfinder. Using the OGL and the SRD 3.5.

Paizo competed head to head with D&D 4th ed. and made more money. Using the OGL and the SRD which are D&D holdings Paizo beat a corporation. Additionally, WotC abandoned the OGL for the Game Systems License (GSL) which was incredibly more restrictive than the OGL. Fan reaction to 4th edition was poor. For a lot of reasons. Content outside of WotC was harder to come by did not seem to help. The 4th edition lasted 6 years. It was the shortest lived ruleset outside of the boxed sets in the late 70s through the 90's. But even then those box sets were running congruent with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and its 2nd edition.

In 2014 5th edition came to the table and brought people back to the table and the name Dungeons and Dragons. It can not be overstated how popular 5e is compared to any other edition. And the OGL and SRD 5 was released a full 2 years after initial release of the ruleset. It has become to the public that people play a role playing game. Then in late 2022 and early 2023 Hasbro and WotC did what corporations do and devised schemes to make money that hurt everyone, damaged their reputation and pushed people to other systems. (Anecdotally, we found Monster of the Week and Call of Cthulu). The 5e community and the TTRPG community stood up for themselves and the games at their tables and got WotC to backtrack. In fact they released the SRD for 5th edition to a creative commons license. A bold move. Everyone helped. Influencers became revolutionaries. And even some of the grognards looked up from their games and spoke out. And it's time we pay some of them back. Since February 2023 the shake up with 5e is over. At the time of this writing 2/26/23 WotC still hasn't released the 3.5 SRD to creative commons. Despite public insurances that they would do so. Kyle Brink in his interviews has stated that this was the plan but they need to read it and release a version that removes some of their protected intellectual properties. These documents aren't that big. There's an even smaller number of IP connected to 3.5. What could possibly be taking so long? And why is the Owlbear the hill that WotC is willing to die on here?

Interview with Kyle Brink I firmly believe that WotC/Hasbro can just drag their feet all they want because their just isn't the fanbase to move them into a mode of importance. They'd rather put out weird Druid Rules and remove the nuance from Game Masters in their One D&D Packets... And therein lies the difference. With no real push; no real assistance the 3.5 SRD will languish in stasis with no real movement until those players in 3.5 and making content for it get enough assistance to help prioritize it. And why should you care? Because it's good for the game. It's good for players. There are so many of us that want the game to improve. This is an easy way to do so. It costs a little bit of time and effort, But not much. Pressure campaigns against corporations have been successful. With a nudge and a push we can help 3.5 players and content creators feel secure that their content is fine and will not go away or be held liable if it's revoked. I also want to speak to this post. The issue at hand and it's relative importance in the overall scheme of things. I'm small. I have 3 blog posts in a crowded market and I am happy to have just under 400 views. I will not make a real difference. There are tens of thousands starfish on the beach. This is me throwing one in at a time. It makes little difference to the starfish I can't reach but it matters to each starfish I do throw in the ocean.

#open3.5 #releasetheowlbear