IP Freely
One of the really interesting things about this WotC / OGL thing (if it ends up coming to pass), is how it exposes a way theyāve shot themselves in the foot. I mean, other than the obvious.
Since you canāt copyright game mechanics (though Iām sure theyāll try to sue everyone anyway), D&D has two things remaining: brand recognition, and IP.
Their brand recognition is going to be the real hurdle, because itās stronger now than anytime in the past, really. Theyāre about as close to mainstream as theyāve ever been. They got a Chris Pine movie coming out. Theyāre in the āgenericā phase of popularity, where āplaying D&Dā is shorthand for the entire tabletop experience in all but the minds of the nerdliest of nerds (I include myself in this group, Deadlands4Ever!).
Iām not sure surmounting the brand recognition is possible for any new game (at least not on a short time scale), which is where the battle is going to be fought. Pathfinder has the strongest play, probably, if they can survive the legal fees theyāre about to be assailed with. Sounds like Kobold Press is making some moves, too, and more power to them. Good luck, everyone.
However, WotC could have had an enormous second weapon in their arsenal, one theyāve systematically dismantled since around 3rd edition: their IP. Nowadays, I doubt many new players know anything about the D&D IP, and I donāt mean that in a grognard / gatekeepy way. I mean, the company used 3rd, 4th, and much of 5th (with exceptions) to wipe their own IP away in the name of ease of use. Which obviously worked for them - they clearly have the new player base they were looking for.
But, believe it or not, D&D used to have big iconic characters. Elminster and Tanis Half-Elven and the Dragon of Tyr. Fiction books on the best seller list. Spinoff game lore books in the dozens about each setting, packaged in full boxes with maps. Branded video games that introduced huge groups of non-dice rollers to places like Baldurās Gate and Sigil. They had a mainstream Saturday morning cartoon show, for chrissakes.
Somewhere around 3e, though (when WotC took over), they started to seem embarrassed of their own IP. They released fewer novels, they alienated their own authors. They stopped making campaign settings (leaving 3rd parties to occasionally do it, but with little support or marketing), letting Dragonlance, Spelljammer, PlaneScape, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft wither on the vine. Generic Fantasy World A and B became the primary setting (Greyhawk in name only for 3e, the wildly beige āPoints of Lightā setting for 4e).
They certainly stopped trying to make movies or cartoons with their IP. Video games set in D&D worlds became thin on the ground, mostly just a half-hearted MMO no one remembers.
Why wasnāt there a Drizzt movie or cartoon? According to Telegram, the character sold 35 million novels and was on the New York Times Best Seller list dozens of times.
5e tried to make a course-correction. In the rulebooks, you started to see names like āBruenor Battlehammerā in rules examples instead of the generic āTordekā and āMialee.ā Curse of Strahd was probably the strongest IP exercise, single-handedly resurrecting Ravenloft and one of the brandās most iconic villains for millions of new players.
But even these attempts have been lacking any real teeth. Ravenloft eventually got an anemic āVan Richtenās Guideā fully five years after Curse of Strahd became popular, a book that lacked sufficient detail for a true campaign setting - or sufficient flavor to excite newcomers. Dark Sun remains on a shelf. Dragonlance only recently started getting attention, but even those books have been premade campaigns pretending to be campaign settings. Spelljammer is probably their most notable effort in 5e, which actually came with multiple setting books, probably a callback to the heyday of Spelljammer (when D&D loved introducing you to new worlds).
But this isnāt about campaign setting books, though that shit contributes.
Itās more that WotC spent the past two and a half decades making D&D as generic as humanly possible, without all of the flavor and characters of their most interesting settings, and burying all of their actually valuable IP.
And now that people are looking to jump ship, the company has nothing more than branding to lean on.
I hate to say āI told you so,ā but, well, shit. Turns out all those cool stories and settings hundreds of people worked on and millions of people loved had some value or whatever.
