Starting today Waffle is Unbreakable is taking over running the Tabletop thread, many thanks to TheCleverGuy for running this space for so many years!

Today’s topic of discussion is the Open Game License and the proposed changes coming for OneD&D. I don’t have the best knowledge on the subject, so I will leave it to some more studied folks than I to talk about it.

https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/beware-gifts-dragons-how-dds-open-gaming-license-may-have-become-trap-creators

My personal feelings about this are mixed. It’s a bad idea over all to piss off a player base that has made your product a huge sensation, but it’s also not something they can take away at a fundamental level. Existing materials are still existing and offline play will probably see little to no ill effects from this as it’s not like Hasbro can come shut down your table for not paying your dues or something. But it will have a chilling effect on people playing and especially on online play when there’s only a single source to play (DnDBeyond) and very restricted access for creation of new materials from there.

That said, there are MANY other games out there, some which I would argue are superior to Dungeons & Dragons on various levels and which those of us who want to continue in the hobby in general will certainly turn to. This happened once before, although not as widely ranging as the proposed changes this time, and it didn’t kill the spark of play. It’s my hope that this will push people into new and different avenues and that in the end we will be larger and healthier for it.

But for now, it looks like dark difficult times for many tabletop nerds, especially new ones.