According to Wizard's official article, writers can now use the OGL and sell their material through the approved Dungeon Masters Guild website (from what I seen Wizards gets a 50% cut) provided your 5E product uses original IP or is set in the Forgotten Realms. Well that of course crushes the hopes of many Greyhawk fans such as myself who want to share some quality material for the new edition. Of course it's mentioned in their FAQ that other settings' IP may be opened later, but the pessimist in me says this will be hew closer to 6th Edition than the start of the OGL. Then again, with so many people potentially developing FR maybe Wizards' staff will focus on Oerth for once (pipe dream?).
Greyhawk gripes aside, this new OGL set-up is indeed great news for everyone, especially for people who want to develop and sell a homebrew setting. In the very least it will be good to get into the practice of self-publishing in the event Greyhawk or some other loved setting comes open for general use. Who knows, maybe then a clever team of Greyhawk fan-writers can revive the setting like they did almost two decades ago...
Update 06/11/2021: Still waiting...
Update 06/11/2176: Still waiting...
I've had a look and read some of the discussions on ENWorld. From what I understand you are quite right - you cannot yet publish Greyhawk-specific material.
ReplyDeleteThe OGL is slightly different from the Dungeon Masters Guild. The OGL allows for publishing of either setting-neutral or homebrew campaign material, while the DMG allows publishing of either setting-neutral material or FR material.
Personally I would love to see other people's ideas about Greyhawk - it is so much more of a blank canvas than Forgotten Realms. I actually quite like FR, but there is so much official material about it that you've got to ignore canon or be very studious and careful to create your own stuff there without it clashing with what has been already published.