OneD&D, OGL1.1, what the future holds [this may change rapidly]

After the first batch of playtest rules for OneD&D, I became uninterested in it. It was not a conscious decision, it just happened. I didn't want to even read the second batch. "Help us shape the future of D&D". Well, after 9 years and more than 400€ spent on 5e books and supplements, it's safe to say that I'm not interested in shaping another edition of the game. I'm sorry, but I cut my teeth with Warhammer 40.000's insane frequency of new editions just to sell again and again the same books, so I won't fall into this. Not that I'm saying that D&D will reach that rate of publications (5e has last for 10 years after all, with a fraction of the books published during other editions), but the future of One D&D doesn't seem to shine.

I'm following the outburst of protest regarding the supposed OGL 1.1, with ttrpg influencers and companies trying to push people to other games. I too think that if the OGL 1.1 is going to be exactly like the leaks, this will spell the end for a great chunk of the D&D community (the creators of third party content especially), worsening the hobby for everyone in general and ending the current D&D Golden Age. Hey, this always happens: golden ages exist thanks to a combination of factors. You can prolong them by mantaining the status quo, but after a golden age there will always be Dark Times.

I'm not gonna lie, I frequently thought of trying to sell my D&D homebrews, of going "semi-professional" so to speak. This would have meant hiring artists at the very least, putting a lot of effort and hours in it and actually playtesting stuff. I couldn't do all those things, not together. So I put them down, published here the occasional idea and kept thinking "maybe someday". I also noticed that very few people still publish fanmade free stuff. So I took that apparently free stuff floating in the web stinks or is irrelevant, since people search for things on the dmsguild, itch.io or somewhere else I don't even know, and are somewhat happy to pay for it.

I own two 5e compatible products: "Ruins of Symbar" and the "Hellboy RPG". A friend of mine has the 5e version of "Trudvang" and other friends have other stuff. 5e is everywhere. The truth is that D&D has a position of great advantage over the market, so that many companies (from big to small) tried to profit from it instead of being ignored by consumers too "fresh" to learn a new system, be it easy or difficult. As it is customary in situations like this, a large chunk of people in the business "admits" that they don't like D&D, or repeat that they never liked it, but that was what payed the bills, so... We have true, honest people and convenience, jealous liars. This is human history repeating on a small scale whenever something big ends. This is Peter disowning Jesus.

Someone reading this may assume that I'm a D&D-fanboy. While I love D&D, I also aknowledge its limitations (as I've done in the past and always will). I own many other TTRPGs, like Call of Cthulhu, Vampire the Masquerade, Symbaroum, Mork Borg (this one is fenomenal, try it), Tales from the Loop/Flood, Mothership, The Sprawl, Sigmata, Sine Requie, l'Ultima Bomba, Alice is Missing, Lovecraftesque... And I've played many more, like Blades in the Dark, 7th Sea (I especially don't like this and I'm sorry, but honestly I found its style of gameplay offensive), Anime e Sangue, GURPS, Old School Essentials (which is a rebranded version of OD&D)... Each TTRPG has its thing, so to speak. Out of the box D&D is good at making medium/high power fantasy and it can do other genres with some effort, as I've shown here on this blog. It fails at pure sci-fi, personal drama (if you want game mechanics for it), noir and apocalyptic. 5e's game system (especially that bounded accuracy thing) occupies a perfect niche for me: it is complex enough to deliver enough personalization, but not too complex; more importantly, it is what me and my friends play nowadays.

Try proposing a new system, even for a one-shot, to people who have played only or mainly D&D. My experience is that they will refuse or find an excuse to not be there. I've had friends asking me to GM a game for them for years and when I finally proposed it to the group, only one or two people actually were interested. I've had games for 3 to 4 players that I had to play with only 2 people, because at last minute someone did cancel. Of course there are similar problems in D&D, but only over a long adventure or a campaign. The point is, with other systems one-shots are more difficult to organize than a D&D campaign. This is a problem the community will have to face if the "ttrpg personalities" are truly going to "leave" D&D.

The new management at WotC has shown itself as greedy as possible. The whole "undermonetized" thing clearly show a great detachment from the fanbase, an ignorance only possible by figures who come from another world entirely (which is actually the case oh my gosh who could have predicted that?!?). Even the former CEO of WotC tweeted that this OGL move is bad for D&D. It is clear then that the decision comes from higher places (Hasbro), even more detached from normal human beings and things like "communities". Their only community are their shareholders.

The only thing that can be done by us is to protest and boycott. That is why I will keep playing 5e and not switching to One D&D or engaging in their coming VTT (I wouldn't have anyway, but still). That is why I may not renew my D&D Beyond subscription, although it is useful to me. I have yet to decide on that point. Boycott the movie is out of question, because it is a licensed product, not an actual WotC product. [This in particular is the same dumbassery that exploded with Hogwarts Legacy, when dumb influencers told people to not buy the game to not forage J.K. Rowling, saying that the studio who made the game had already been paid and so a poor sales performance won't affect the workers. It's the contrary, you idiots. And to be clear, I think Hogwarts Legacy is fuming trash, as Harry Potter has been after the sixth book.]

The sad news is that only if all of those who are offended by this would boycott everything, it would have any effect. There are many people who just buy books and don't care. And it is not easy for everyone to distinguish from a legitimate claim of one's dues to a draconian and greedy measure of control. Much of it comes from personal background and beliefs.

In the end, let's do what we can and hope that it is enough to scare WotC to the point they will never publish the new OGL. Our only other hope is that they can't legally revoke OGL 1.0a, but this will need a trial and some years.