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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Interesting Article on OGL and 4E
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<blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 4038225" data-attributes="member: 8863"><p>My thoughts on it:</p><p></p><p>I generally agree with what Pramas is saying. WotC set up the whole OGL and d20 thing to help them sell D&D product. They largely expected the third parties to do stuff like modules or "plug-and-play" type stuff that had material that DMs or players could just drop into a campaign here or there. Maybe they felt there was an unofficial agreement to this or something.</p><p></p><p>But the third parties made stuff like splatbooks, which directly competed with WotC's splats. I can imagine people at WotC getting irritated with third parties releasing their own splats earlier and cutting into sales. </p><p></p><p>Some third parties also did campaign settings, which also cut into WotC's overall plan. They'd already determined that too many settings in 2e was fragmenting their base. Third party settings in 3e probably wasn't helpful either. </p><p></p><p>Finally, WotC's intent was to promote the D&D/d20 rules. The whole idea was that the RPG market was simply too small to supports too many different rule sets. That's undermined by systems using the OGL that aren't entirely d20, since they're creating new systems. </p><p></p><p>I'm largely generalizing too, I'm not saying that the third parties are the bad guys, or that they just make crap. I'm unfamiliar with their work. Some of it is praised as good, and I'll assume that praise is deserved. My point is that the OGL sounded good, but didn't work the way it was intended. I can't really blame WotC for trying a new approach with it that will allow third parties to support D&D without prohibitive licencing fees but also not hurt WotC's profits.</p><p></p><p>Also, for those of you who are saying how sinister WotC's action are with this, I'm reminded of the things that were said 8 years ago when the OGL was first announced. A lot of people thought all WotC was doing was trying to destroy other systems in favor of d20 so they could utterly dominate the market.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Orius, post: 4038225, member: 8863"] My thoughts on it: I generally agree with what Pramas is saying. WotC set up the whole OGL and d20 thing to help them sell D&D product. They largely expected the third parties to do stuff like modules or "plug-and-play" type stuff that had material that DMs or players could just drop into a campaign here or there. Maybe they felt there was an unofficial agreement to this or something. But the third parties made stuff like splatbooks, which directly competed with WotC's splats. I can imagine people at WotC getting irritated with third parties releasing their own splats earlier and cutting into sales. Some third parties also did campaign settings, which also cut into WotC's overall plan. They'd already determined that too many settings in 2e was fragmenting their base. Third party settings in 3e probably wasn't helpful either. Finally, WotC's intent was to promote the D&D/d20 rules. The whole idea was that the RPG market was simply too small to supports too many different rule sets. That's undermined by systems using the OGL that aren't entirely d20, since they're creating new systems. I'm largely generalizing too, I'm not saying that the third parties are the bad guys, or that they just make crap. I'm unfamiliar with their work. Some of it is praised as good, and I'll assume that praise is deserved. My point is that the OGL sounded good, but didn't work the way it was intended. I can't really blame WotC for trying a new approach with it that will allow third parties to support D&D without prohibitive licencing fees but also not hurt WotC's profits. Also, for those of you who are saying how sinister WotC's action are with this, I'm reminded of the things that were said 8 years ago when the OGL was first announced. A lot of people thought all WotC was doing was trying to destroy other systems in favor of d20 so they could utterly dominate the market. [/QUOTE]
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Interesting Article on OGL and 4E
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