Critical Role, the hit homebrew Dungeons & Dragons campaign, live-streamed weekly to nearly 1.8 million subscribers is currently in the firing line from fans showing their open distaste for the leaked OGL 1.1 changes to Wizards of the Coast’s game licensing.
Game Master Matthew Mercer and his fellow voice actors on the cast have all stayed quiet since the news leaked on January 8, regarding WOTC’s plan to monetize any D&D content that reaches a certain level of income. This has caused concern among fans of the show, who are hoping that Mercer and the rest of Critical Role speak out about it.
What is DnD OGL 1.1 and 2.0 and how is Critical Role involved?
OGL (Open Gaming Licence) 1.0a is a free license that WOTC provides for any and all D&D players to create their own homebrews, adventures, and campaigns with zero royalties owed to WOTC from any profits made.
OGL 1.1 seeks to change that by chasing creators for a sum of their income made under the Dungeons and Dragons license, and a number of third-party publishers are leading the #OpenDND online campaign in order to oppose those aggressive changes. Today, a dialed-back version of the license, dubbed OGL 2.0 was released to select content creators, with summaries of the changes appearing online:
Critical Role’s response to OGL 1.1 and 2.0
The Critical Role team has yet to respond to any of the changes released so far, with regularly scheduled social media posts still being posted on Twitter. Fans are already in the comments, hoping for there to be some kind of response on tonight’s show.
Other fans are considering the real possibility that there will be no official response from CR anytime soon, as the shows are often pre-recorded some months back, with tonight’s likely being recorded back in September. It’s also worth noting that Critical Role has often been sponsored by D&D Beyond or WOTC in some way and has a close relationship with the company, so an ill-timed response could land them in hot water.
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