In contrast to the GSL, Ryan Dancey on OGL/D20 in WotC archives

[mearls]

I think Nifft and WayneLigon hit on important issues.

In a way, all the rules produced by an open source project are a waste of time if nobody uses it, whether it's publishers or users.

In some ways, you have to start small. We're at that point already. Even the most successful people who published SRD-derived stuff reached a small portion of the audience.

You also have the indirect benefit of learning how to design and develop good rules. You might see an open project as simply a training ground. The $$$ benefits come later, when you use those skills to get a freelance assignment or even a job.

There's also the prestige of being the guy who came up with a clever idea.

But we also might be in a position where the realities of RPG publishing mean that a true open movement is impossible.

IMO, one of the reasons it works well in software is that having functional code has benefits outside of the functional code. Apache isn't great because I can burn it to a disc and sell it to people; it's great because it keeps my web sight up and running. The people buying stuff off my site are happy, the internal projects that use the web server stay on schedule because Apache is never down, and if it does crash I can wade through the code, or poke around online, to figure out how to fix it.

We might simply lack an equivalent value in RPGs.

 

[xechnao]

No. Much of my formative understanding of RPG design was derived from the late, lamented Gaming Outpost forums.

Paying people allows them to devote more time to RPG design, and it makes really big, sprawling projects that require full-time effort possible. However, in my experience that doesn't have a bearing on learning better design.

The biggest benefit of working at WotC is that I get to talk to other people full-time about game design. When I was freelance, most of my learning took place off the clock, when I was talking design at GenCon or Origins, or while talking to people on line.

Tell you what. I believe I have something to offer. I might be wrong but we wouldn't know if I did not have the chance to show my stuff. I do not have that chance. Why? Because it needs lots of time. It takes lots of individual effort and time to build a structure that can show your points and be attractive enough to gain peoples attention. Time and effort I do not have due to having to earn some sort of income. This is the problematic I think of open development at this point. If I knew I could earn something to sustain me entertain people then there would be no problem doing so, no?

 

[mearls]

Tell you what. I believe I have something to offer. I might be wrong but we wouldn't know if I did not have the chance to show my stuff. I do not have that chance. Why? Because it needs lots of time. It takes lots of individual effort and time to build a structure that can show your points and be attractive enough to gain peoples attention. Time and effort I do not have due to having to earn some sort of income. This is the problematic I think of open development at this point. If I knew I could earn something to sustain me entertain people then there would be no problem doing so, no?

Of course there's no problem with that, and in many ways what I am envisioning directly speaks to that.

Let's say you like tinkering with rules in your campaign. There exists a community of like-minded people, let's say a web forum, who talk about design, present bits and pieces of design, and go back and forth on what's good, what works, and so on.

You don't have enough time to create a complete game, but you have time to read and contribute to the forum. As time passes, you learn more and more about design.

Meanwhile, you have a few ideas for your game that you can put together, like a system for critical hits, or something like that. You post those on the forum. People talk about them, give you feedback. Maybe someone uses those ideas for their own game.

Let's say that WotC then posts a job for an RPG designer. I'm now going to let you in on a little secret: almost 100% of your chance to get a job at WotC lies in your ability to do well on the design test.*

If you've been talking about games, studying game design, and working through it with other people, you could easily outperform someone who has spent 20 years working on RPGs. In fact, I've seen that happen.

Now, let's take it another step. Let's say you don't want to work at WotC, but you do want to publish your own stuff. All of that debate, discussion, and sharing can only help.

I think we're missing that middle step, the one between "I'd like to publish something" and "I'm not publishing."

*Interesting implication: Almost 100% of our ability to recruit talented people and make good D&D stuff lies in our ability to make a good test and correctly interpret the results.

BTW, I have to head out now, and I'm at Origins this week. I'd really love to post more, because this has been a very interesting and enlightening thread.

 

[hong]

Mearls, you can be the Linus Torvalds of RPGs.

You know you want it. It is... your destiny.

 

[Mark]

No one needs to try and control the Open Gaming Movement in a single forum to create a think tank for OGC and Game Design, nor do they need to vilify publishers (which often are just that same style of think tank with a more definite goal in mind) for doing what they do with OGC. If people want to work with the Open Gaming Movement they can do so anywhere they like, on universal boards like this one, on publisher's forums, like Paizo or any other that is part of the Open Gaming Movement, or even on the new OGC repository forums that is being set up by a number of individuals in the community along with the help and support of a number of publishers.

http://grandwiki.wikidot.com/

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Let's say that WotC then posts a job for an RPG designer. I'm now going to let you in on a little secret: almost 100% of your chance to get a job at WotC lies in your ability to do well on the design test.*

...

*Interesting implication: Almost 100% of our ability to recruit talented people and make good D&D stuff lies in our ability to make a good test and correctly interpret the results.

That explains a lot.

 

[hong]

That explains a lot.

Yeah, it's working pretty well so far!

 

[Nifft]

Time and effort I do not have due to having to earn some sort of income. This is the problematic I think of open development at this point. If I knew I could earn something to sustain me entertain people then there would be no problem doing so, no?

Open secret of open source: people don't get paid to write it.

People get paid to do all sorts of things with it, and sometimes they get concessions from their employer for being a primary author, but hardly anyone gets paid directly just to work on open source projects.

If you aren't doing it out of the love of doing it... well, don't look for compensation other than the joy of doing it. You might get some, you probably won't.

However: it turns out programming is fun! And there are lots of people who will do it just for the joy of doing it. IMHO, game design is similarly fun.

- - -

However, it should be noted: we're nearing a game-design tipping point. As Mike notes, there are some amateurs whose understanding of game design is comparable to that of a 20-year veteran, and yet these amateurs are just doing stuff for fun. This is the pool of talent that the RPG Linus will draw from.

There's just one last thing missing: a mathematical test harness for the rules.

See, in software, people can introduce bugs. So you don't just take any guy's code and add it into your kernel. You need to see what effect the new code would have on the operation of the system. Compilers, simple sanity tests, and actually having the damn thing boot up all checks.

We don't yet have a clear understanding of what such a test framework would look like, but it's not impossible to imagine some of the things it would test -- in a way, simulating a fight is like simulating a basket of correlated securities in a crisis, watching as some default and others survive at the other's expense.

- - -

Anyway, I think I had a point here... oh yeah:
1/ Don't expect to make money from open any-damn-thing; and
2/ Coherent leadership demands BLOOD AND IRON! -- er, I mean, a well understood "goodness metric".

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nifft]

Yeah, it's working pretty well so far!

... said the guy with TWO Mearls-related websites in his sig.

Hrrrm, -- N

 

[Vigilance]

The OGL is so open that WotC potentially faces the same fate as the IBM manufactured PC.

And as a result of that realization, they adopted a new license (the GSL) much more like an Apple license than an IBM "open platform".

I also disagree that the OGL movement didn't work on iterative design. There have been works based on other works, there's active support for Mutants and Masterminds, True 20, d20 Modern, Iron Heroes and Arcana Evolved from various companies.

This looks like iterative design to me.

Not every product is viral, but not every product DESERVES to be.