Words by Matt Jarvis
2008 marked a revolution in roleplaying. Wizards of the Coast announced that the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons would drop the Open Game Licence (OGL) introduced with the third edition of the RPG in favour of a new system known as the Game System Licence (GSL). The decision caused uproar among fans, as the OGL had allowed third-party creators to use elements of D&D to create their own roleplaying titles, whereas the GSL offered a far more restrictive system that only permitted use of certain approved phrases and simply referred players back to the fourth edition rules, rather than allowing the rules themselves to be used in other titles. (Wizards would later reverse the decision with D&D’s fifth edition in 2015, returning to the OGL.)