Maybe related/interesting: dmdavid.com/tag/…

Relevant resources: Codega's breaking Gizmodo article, Walsh's commentary for the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Another resource: ArsTechnica's coverage

I’m voting to close this question because At the current time, the 1.1 is not published yet. Whole the text has been leaked, its legal force or enforcement isn't tested at all yet.

@Trish that's actually an answer, as of today.

T.Sar there is some related reading here that may help you see the scope of the problem in case you want to use that info to revise your question. For one, you need not ask "how does this impact players" in this question to keep it in scope since you are explicitly asking from a publishing and creating perspective.

FWIW: in contradiction to @KorvinStarmast's comment, I think that "how does this impact players" is a perfectly cromulent portion of a question like this. There's a lot of uncertainty about OGL 1.1 right now, and a lot of people are talking about it like it's the end of the world. Addressing the consequences for both players and publishers in the same question seems reasonable.

If this is something with real stakes for you, you may wish to consult a qualified attorney in your region and discuss your specific situation.

@TimothyAWiseman I'm in the process of doing so, and I'll update this post with whatever answer I get from him.

I'm voting to close too. As @Trish pointed out, there is no official OGL 1.1 yet. All we have seen is a "leaked" document with new rules. We have no way to ascertain the validity of the presented document. So all of this is merely conjecture.

@Trish I understand that, but the lack of publication of one of the triggers of this question. The entire D&D community is aflame because of it - Wikis, youtubers, article-writers. Everyone is discussing this. Hopefully, we can do it so, too, as I believe our format tends to have the highest content-to-noise ration overall.

@T.Sar One of the reasons we have such a high signal to noise ratio is because we discourage speculation and discussion.

@ThomasMarkov Fair enough. Would you prefer that I removed this question, then?

@T.Sar I've actually abstained from VTCing or reviewing this question in the close queue, I'm not too sure about what we should do with it. You might consider posting a workshopping discussion on meta.

I really do think this is an important question, and I'd like it to remain open - but without an actual 1.1 release, it feels premature to dive into what may or may not be the final released language. Once it is released, then the question deserves to be open so it isn't one about speculation and pre-analysis of a draft document.

@NautArch My hope is that, if we scream loud enough, it might not even be released. But we need to understand if we need to get into action or not, and - so far - that seems to be a yes.

If I could I'd vote to close as this is a legal matter for someone who's actually going to publish something.

@Dave Why? This is on-topic for the site, as far as I understand. We even have an OGL-based tag.

@T.Sar the OGL is a legal contract between a 3rd party publisher and WoTC. Asking what effect that contract has on you as someone who is intending to publish depends on the details of your situation, e.g. what exactly you've written and probably what jurisdiction you are in, and involves matters of contract and probably IP law.

@Dave the "me" is rethorical, not literally myself. I end the question with "me as a publisher" in the sense of "me as an average person that publishes things". Of course, this is relevant to myself, by not only myself.

@T.Sar "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page." (from the help page rpg.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask)

@Dave I don't understand your link. This is based on a problem I face. What's the issue?

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

@Dave As I was saying - a question can be about the general isssue I face without going about over every small detail of my very ultra-specific situation.

It's based of, so some generalization is acceptable.

This is a problem I face. I want to know how this thing I'm dealing with affects the average publisher.

The answers for "[generic] me as a publisher" is it depends, and it is not a gaming question but a legal question.

And those are perfectly on-topic, as OGL itself is.

As long as they are mostly asnwerable by an RPG expert.

I was unaware of them, and would vote to close those too.

Keep in mind the site isn't just about gaming - it's also about publishing, people-relations, drawing, planning, and so on - as long as they relate to RPGs

At least the ones like "Is it legal to..." that I saw

I'll point you out to this meta:

Relevant excerpt:

> Publishing is on topic, and copyright (and trademarks and patents) is an integral part of RPG publishing and licensing. Since publishing is explicitly on topic, that aspect of publishing is part of our topic.

Ok, I disagree with the highly voted answer.

It’s definitely on topic, it’s more that it’s about a leak and not a real document we can reference and report on. I’d close a question about a leaked one d&d document, too.

@Dave That's how the the community has decided to handle these sorts of questions, and unless something happens that sends a strong signal that the community at large may be shifting towards a different approach, that's how we're going to continue to handle these sorts of questions.

How about the too broad track then. "me as a publisher"... Are you publishing a setting lore book, an adventure, a book of classes/subclasses a new ruleset, a modified ruleset for a particular environment etc.? Are you using any of the product identity material?

@ThomasMarkov I can raise my one voice, n.b. I didn't/can't vote to close, expressing my opinion

@Dave Yeah, some of your options are to downvote the answer you disagree with, leave a brief comment explaining why, or if you're feeling really strongly about it, consider drafting an answer to the contrary.

The fundamental problem is that the answer is "it depends" it depends on the details of the work in question and it depends on what are still untested questions of law, so there is no good answer.

Just to be clear, I'd like there to be good, answerable questions about the current controversy, I just don't think this one is a good fit, and frankly, I'm not sure what such questions would look like

@Dave I don't think we can have questions on the controversy until we have real legal terms. And once we do, general questions may not be as useful as direct questions about specifics regarding the OGL and current use from 3PP.

I have X specific concern, is that going to be a problem is a very different question than what's the hubbub and what should I be worried about.

Not saying that second one can't be a question, but what's concerning and what isn't may be somewhat opinion-based (although the concerns worried about currently are not.)

Anywho, I don't think we can have these questions until there is an actual document.

As i've said before, it's like asking rules questions about a leaked ruleset that isn't final. It just isn't going to be helpful.

@minnmass I guess we need to agree to disagree. I feel that, with T.Sar's explicit statement that they are actually in the mode of publishing, the scope of that question is how it affects an attempt at TTP. How it impacts fans is a different question with a different scope. SE's value proposition is aided by well scoped questions that attract good, correct answers.