What have been the big innovations in RPGs?

Fifth Element said:

Incorrect. Rather than delving into a potential legal grey area (despite how many internet armchair lawyers tell you that "you can't copyright game mechanics", it's a much murkier proposition than that simple black and white statement), publishers were given a legal safe haven. If you adhere to the terms of the license, WotC doesn't bother you.

That, and the fact that you can use much of their rules text verbatim (which you absolutely could not do without the license), results in a great deal of utility from that license.

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Kenzer seems to have done ok with Kalamar:

javascriptopupWindow('http://www.kenzerco.com/popup_image.php?pID=625&image=0')

You'll notice no GSL. This is a product for 4e, but the same thing could have been done with 3e.

JRRNeiklot said:

Kenzer seems to have done ok with Kalamar:

javascriptopupWindow('http://www.kenzerco.com/popup_image.php?pID=625&image=0')

You'll notice no GSL. This is a product for 4e, but the same thing could have been done with 3e.

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That is a specious argument: The OGL provides safe harbor from real risk of copyright infringement, it is far from a sham.

Having read the latest Kingdoms of Kalamar cover to cover I can tell you the majority of the content in that book is original content created by Kenzer. Most of the entries related to 4e D&D ask the reader to refer back to the 4E D&D Player's Handbook.

I am not a lawyer but it is my understanding that the claim of compatibility is minimal and likely allowed under trademark law. They don't use the TM'd logo. The claim is not unlike the car parts manufacturer who claims "this air filter fits most Chevrolet trucks".

JRRNeiklot said:

You'll notice no GSL. This is a product for 4e, but the same thing could have been done with 3e.

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What does this have to do with your claim that the OGL is a scam? The GSL is much more restrictive that the OGL, and they're not the same thing. But we're not talking about the GSL.

Besides that, what one company does has no bearing on the intent and utility of the OGL. Many, many other companies used the OGL as it was intended. Really, your post does nothing to counter anything I wrote.

nedjer said:

If nothing else we can use that to infer that the quality of the snacks at the gaming table should impact on the quality of the players' narrative/ game?

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Probably meant in jest, but sure, I think we can.

If I turn up to a game of Vampire, say, where we've got beer, pretzels and Wotsits I'll probably play differently than if the host had laid on red wine and rare steak.

nedjer said:

Science showing play and games are socially situated was 'out and about' in psychology long before the '90s. It's kind of unfortunate that tabletop RPG theory hasn't moved on and aligned itself with scientific research.

Psychologists now see social systems, including games, as complex, cascading systems with interacting biological, social, cognitive, psychodynamic, reflexive and metacognitive dimensions.

If nothing else we can use that to infer that the quality of the snacks at the gaming table should impact on the quality of the players' narrative/ game?

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I readily agree the hobby has not been helped with theories vested in proving others wrong in bitter dispute. Games are fictional and scripts for people, meaning they are a social system in miniature. But being fictional does not make something a literary genre as any theoretical mathematician would agree. I'd much rather hire a mathematician to design a game than a novelist. At least the two skill sets overlap.

The need for a scientific, meaning an empirically-based, approach towards games is the best thing for all involved IMO. The difficulty comes in overthrowing a now entrenched belief system constructed to redefine roleplaying as an improvisational enterprise during any game from the scripted (rule expression) enterprise.

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Now that I think about it, the big innovation in RPGs is that Blizzard discovered that they could make a metric buttload of money if they took out all of the RP from the G.

This was first perfected in the Diablo series, which has all of the trappings of a traditional fantasy RPG except that you don't actually role play. You interact with NPCs, sure, but all you do is get quests and rewards from them. The cutscenes are non interactive and the plot is a railroad.

They sold millions of them. I think between Diablo, Diablo II and Lord of Destruction, they moved over 20 million copies.

Currently, the cash cow is WoW There are hundreds of servers, less than one in ten is listed as a RP server and even there, people don't always role play.

The lesson Blizzard teaches is that the masses like combat, like kewl powerz, phat lewt and don't care much about role playing.

Simultaneously, at the opposite end of the spectrum, indie game designers were focusing on rethinking role playing, spawning the indie game movement. Many interesting products of this movement aren't entirely functional as games as much as fascinating thought experiments.

It remains to be seen what impact this movement will have on the future of the hobby.

cattoy said:

The lesson Blizzard teaches is that the masses like combat, like kewl powerz, phat lewt and don't care much about role playing.

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Hmmm.... not sure I agree here. I think all we can infer from the success of Blizzard (at least as you'e outlined it) is that those masses who do "like combat, like kewl powerz, phat lewt and don't care much about role playing" are willing to shell out a fair bit of cash for that experience. Since no one has managed to integrate an automated DM program into a MMORPG, we can't really say how the masses would react to it.

But given how social people are online, I think an RP-focused app has the potential to be quite successful-- provided the genre, mechanic, user interface, etc had a broad appeal.

Hmmm... and therein lies the rub...

Fifth Element said:

What does this have to do with your claim that the OGL is a scam? The GSL is much more restrictive that the OGL, and they're not the same thing. But we're not talking about the GSL.

Besides that, what one company does has no bearing on the intent and utility of the OGL. Many, many other companies used the OGL as it was intended. Really, your post does nothing to counter anything I wrote.

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Perhaps I chose the wrong word. By "scam" I meant that there is no reason you'd even need the OGL or GSL to produce content for 3e or 4e. But many, many people used it because they were unaware that they didn't need it. As long as no patents or copyrights of another company is used, material can be produced that "works with" another companies game. No need for a license. The d20 companies signed a license to do something they already had the power to do.

JRRNeiklot said:

Perhaps I chose the wrong word. By "scam" I meant that there is no reason you'd even need the OGL or GSL to produce content for 3e or 4e. But many, many people used it because they were unaware that they didn't need it. As long as no patents or copyrights of another company is used, material can be produced that "works with" another companies game. No need for a license. The d20 companies signed a license to do something they already had the power to do.

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I agree that no one *has* to agree to the terms of the OGL/GSL in order to produce products compatible with D&D. Publishers choose to do it for a number of reasons, including:

Legal: By agreeing to the terms of the licenses, you place yourself in a safe harbor that mostly shields you from the kinds of lawsuits you might face if you didn't use it. Remember the lawsuits by TSR back in the 80s against companies that produced compatible products? Remember that the legal bills of those companies forced them into submission by the behemoth that was TSR? That's a fairly significant risk to take when you don't have to (and it costs you nothing).

Distribution: Agreeing to the licenses increases the likelihood of getting carried by the major distributors. That means you have a chance of showing up on the shelves of your favorite local gaming store. For digital distribution, it means you're going to get placed with other products of the same system.

Consumer Acceptance: By and large, consumers accept the OGL/GSL. That means they understand that products that carry the standard notices required by these licenses will work for their games. Without that, you get to build up trust from zero and hope enough gamers purchase your products. That's not easy, cheap, fast, or painless--and most of the companies producing products today grew their fanbase from their success with the OGL/d20 and now GSL.

So, as long as you're prone to taking extraordinary risks, willing to invest a lot of capital in getting your product known (and perhaps a boatload more for defending every assumption about what's permitted and what's not under copyright and trademark law), and slowly building up a product line from the ground floor, you can go without the benefits that the OGL/GSL provide.