Wizards of the Coast Releases SRD Under Creative Commons License (CC-BY-4.0)

Sweet. That's nice to see

Yep - not only is there no catch right now, but they literally can never add one. The SRD is released under CC-BY-4.0.

The only point of contention is what happens to their new product, One D&D, which will probably retain some nasty payment structure, and almost certainly not be OGL'd. That's fine though - if they build a walled garden around One D&D, they simply won't be able to compete against the open community of 5e.

I think they've completely misunderstood their product. The execs in charge of running the show come from video games, and watching what they're trying to do with DnD beyond makes it pretty obvious they're trying to introduce micro transaction hell and loot boxes into the product.

Matt Colville whacked the nail on the head when he said D&D isn't really a game, it's a folk tradition and storytelling. Those are two very difficult things to monetize.

D&D 5th Edition (and some earlier editions) was released in a way that allowed third parties to create their own compatible content by referencing a document called the "SRD", licensed under the so-called Open Game License. This document contained the basic rules and content necessary to play D&D. If you wanted to include a zombie in your published adventure you could use the stat block from the SRD. The license also had some rules to make sure you didn't pass off your content as official, that kind of thing. There is a substantial market for third-party D&D content, and there are numerous companies that make it a core part of their business.

The OGL was written before VTTs (virtual tabletops) were really a thing, so it doesn't explicitly authorize them. Instead, VTT developers arrange their own deal with Wizards directly.

Wizards has also been in a conflict recently with a company affiliated with one of the children of Gary Gygax, co-creator of D&D. As I understand it, this company is promoting itself as a throwback to the good old days when tabletop gaming wasn't "woke", and are using OGL content in provocative ways as part of this campaign.

Finally, Wizards is preparing a new version of D&D, "D&D One". All of this was the backdrop to a leaked plan to update the OGL. The new license explicitly said it only applied to printed content, not software like VTTs or games. It also had language allowing them to revoke the license if applied to offensive material. It included a royalty schedule for larger companies to pay on sales of licensed content. Most significantly, the plan was to declare the previous versions of the OGL no longer "authorized", retroactively forcing new terms on existing content published under OGL.

This resulted in a massive backlash. Wizards had an initial response where they tried to clarify the VTT issue and promised to get rid of the royalties, but that didn't really help. They announced a "playtest" where existing users could review the new license and provide feedback. As this announcement says, the response was resoundingly negative. So they are pretty much going back on the entire plan. And since the OGL has now lost the trust of the community, they're also licensing that content under a Creative Commons attribution license they don't control.

Worth noting that this post doesn't mention D&D One at all. It seems likely that they are still considering an updated license for the new version of the game, which means there's likely to be more conflict. But I don't think anyone could argue that they don't have the right to release their new game under whatever license they want -- the big deal here was the attempt to retroactively relicense the existing content.

It wasn't even a released draft. It was a leak of what was essentially a shakedown that WoTC tried to bully independents into signing earlier in January.

That they even now keep referring to it as a draft is pretty indicative that they're not acting in good faith