When leaks about an upcoming reorganization of the Dungeons & Dragons license surfaced earlier this month, many fans and creators were horrified to apparent changes that could limit your ability to create derivative games, shows and other content.

But ultimately, NFTs proved to be the bigger target – troubling news for Web3 gaming company Gripnr, which was building a project that tries to capture the allure of the fantasy-themed board game for a new age. Now the company is changing course, as it becomes clear that the parent company of D&D wants nothing to do with NFT.

For more than two decades, the current version of the D&D open game license has allowed fans and companies to create content compatible with the story board game experience by borrowing certain elements, such as game mechanics, from through a system reference document.

Although Wizards of the Coast recently removed some of the most onerous conditions, including mandatory royalties, from the new license after considerable backlash, the license latest iteration stands firm in prohibiting D&D content from being integrated into NFTs.

“We wanted to address those trying to use D&D in Web3, Blockchain games, and NFTs by making it clear that [Open Game License] content is limited to tabletop RPG content,” D&D editor Wizards of the Coast wrote in a blog postcalling your response to third-party Web3 projects one of the main objectives of the company in updating the license.

However, combining elements of Dungeons & Dragons with Web3 technology was pretty much what Gripnr had originally set out to do.

The Louisiana-based company began work on The Glimmering, a blockchain-based board game, in late 2021. Leveraging the Ethereum sidechain network Polygonit was intended to make it easier to play while registering coins, items, and experience points on the chain, among other features, such as rewarding creators and those who monitor The Glimmering sessions.

Referring to the Open Games License and System Reference Document, the game white book he states that the two documents would be used to “bring The Glimmering to life”. A meeting between some members of Gripnr’s senior management was called immediately after the controversial license update was leaked, the game’s lead developer. Stephen Radney-MacFarland said decipher.

“It was a fair amount of chaos,” he said. “We had to go back and rethink, ‘How are we going to do this?’”

Gripnr decided that their best course of action was to go ahead with the project while revoking all uses of the open games license and system reference document. And Gripnr believes that its game does not infringe any intellectual property protected by Wizards of the Coast.

Radney-MacFarland said the ban on NFTs under the proposed version of the license was not entirely shocking, as the company had previously said received communications suggesting that Wizards of the Coast “may not be happy” with The Glimmering. Wizards of the Coast did not immediately respond to decipherRequests for Comments.

Refuse to roll the dice

Last week, Gripnr launched a wide answer to the latest proposed version of the license, outlining issues it has with modifications that extend well beyond the ban on blockchain applications. Ultimately, he presented a plan to create a new open source license for tabletop RPGs.

“The best way forward for Gripnr and many other companies in the industry is to abandon the [Open Games License] and find licenses or other methods that allow us to continue our business,” he said. “To be honest and direct, Wizards does not have a broad right to prevent the use of Web3, blockchain or NFT in table games.”

The blog post also called Wizards of the Coast mentioning NFTs as one of the main reasons for its desire to update the license as “untrue”, considering that its parent company Hasbro has sold NFTs before, including digital collectibles Funko Pop and Starting lineup NBA action figures included with NFT.

gripnr raised $2.5 million in funding, as announced in April 2022, to bring the project to life. But just like him backlash from some video game fans against NFTs, the project has faced considerable skepticism from fans of the tables. “NFTs Are Here To Ruin D&D,” Tech Post gizmodo wrote last year in a lengthy explanation of the project.

While The Glimmering hasn’t launched yet (the chain campaign is scheduled to launch in March), Gripnr has released its Genesis collection of NFT heroes that will be used to play the game. Radney-MacFarland cited the sale of the heroes as one of the reasons for moving forward.

“We definitely weren’t going to pack up and go home,” he said. “We had already worked a lot [and] Sold out of our first series of NFT heroes.”

Heroes have randomly generated attributes that specify a myriad of qualities belonging to each character, such as their respective weapons, armor, and backgrounds. In Open seaThere has only been one recorded sale of a Genesis Collection hero, in October 2022.

Radney-MacFarland, a veteran of the board game industry, has worked for both Wizards of the Coast and Paizo, the publisher of Pathfinder, one of D&D’s biggest competitors. The developer said that he is currently reworking The Glimmering and making adjustments to accommodate the removal of the open games license and system reference document..

“I am frantically going through the things I have already built and making changes,” he said.

Currently, prospective players can get a taste of what The Glimmering will look like through The Tower of Power, an hour-long game session running on Gripnr’s Discord server. He still uses the version of the game from Gripnr that incorporates the D&D license as the current version has not yet been revoked.

The game will still have elements that are staples in the board game industry, including 20-sided dice, spells, adventures, and treasures. Radney-MacFarland explained. But some elements, such as certain monsters and sections of the game’s mythology, are likely to change given the need to clearly differentiate themselves from their legendary influence.

“Our orcs will be a bit different,” he said. “It will be very familiar to what people are used to playing and some parts will be a little different, but I don’t think those parts will be too irritating.”