On January 5, 2023, Gizmodo posted an article about a leaked draft of a new version of Wizards of the Coast’s Open Game License. The article discussed the terms of the new OGL, which apparently include rescinsion of the current Open Game License in favor of the new one.
What does this mean for Arc Dream Publishing and Delta Green? Nothing.
The OGL has facilitated the publication of role-playing games and sourcebooks with shared game mechanics for over 20 years. But to our understanding, the OGL has never been legally necessary.
We speak here as publishers and creators, not lawyers. For legal advice you must obtain your own counsel.
Under the U.S. Copyright Act, copyright protection does not extend to “any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied.” U.S. copyright law protects art. It protects text. It protects stories and distinct thematic concepts. It does not protect game mechanics: the processes of game play, the ideas of game play, as distinct from the text that describes them.
This aspect of copyright law has been exhaustively studied for many years, with billions of dollars at stake not only in RPGs but in board games and video games. Consider D&D. Since Greyhawk introduced “hit points” to Dungeons & Dragons in 1976, countless games have featured hit points. And character classes. Character levels. Ability scores. Experience points. Saving throws. The procedures of play in D&D have driven tabletop games and video games for nearly 50 years.
We included the OGL in the core rulebooks of Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game: the Agent’s Handbook, the Handler’s Guide, and Need to Know. That added their rules elements—but not the text, nor the Delta Green intellectual property—to a body of similar OGL game mechanics begun with WOTC’s 2004 Unearthed Arcana and Mongoose Publishing’s Legend. It served to make clear the foundations on which Delta Green’s rules were built.
With hints that WOTC may attempt to revoke the OGL or impose more onerous terms in a new version, the OGL serves no useful purpose. We will remove that page—the text of the license—from our games. Nothing else will change. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership. The OGL never covered nor facilitated the Delta Green intellectual property: the characters, stories, and other works of Delta Green that have inspired terror around the table for a generation.