1.1

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There's a lot of talk going on right now about WotC's, new "OGL 1.1".
First and foremost, something to consider. WotC isn't going to be able to enforce 1.1.
They can't. 1.0a already says it can't be revoked if someone's following the rules that are laid out for it. That, right there, protects people using the original OGL. Second, if 1.1 is enforceable, this gives WotC the rights to Lord of the Rings, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Wheel of Time, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Mutants and Masterminds, Star Wars, DC Comics, and Wild Cards.

That's a whole lot of companies that would be righteously pissed off with Hasbro. It would most likely lead to a class-action lawsuit. And the courts, when it comes to the kind of contracts you see here, lean in favour of the people signing the contract, and not the people who wrote it up, when there's a grey zone.

Not that there's a grey zone.
With all that being said, WotC needs a smack upside the head. There's a number of other games out there to play, a number of games whose engines are open for people to use to make their own stuff. There's the Cortex engine (Dragon Prince), Fate (Dresden Files, Houses of the Blooded), Savage Worlds (Pathfinder, Rifts), Cypher (Numenera). Blades in the Dark (Blades in the Dark), Powered by the Apocalypse (Kult, City of Mists, Avatar the Last Airbender), and even our company's upcoming ASPS engine (Fox Magic).

The big barrier, of course, is players wanting to learn a new system. Most of the game engines we're mentioning here are pretty straightforward, and are flexible enough that at least one of them should be able to do what you need for your campaign. Of the bunch, we're fans of Cortex, it's the second crunchies game system there (Savage Worlds being crunchier). Or engine, ASPS, is built to let you make damn near anything, in any genre you want, and make it cross-compatible with anything else you make with the engine, regardless of what that is. Want to play tiny talking mice? Go for it.  Giant robots of doom?  Sure.  Make it a crossover? Totally.

The thing is, WotC has shot themself in the foot. Even if they can't enforce this new license (which is not Open Gaming, even if it says OGL), this was a huge act of bad faith, and jumping ship is the most logical thing to do. The trick is sticking to your guns and actually doing it.

Good luck out there, and happy gaming.


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