Mike Mearls On the OGL

[Mark]

Its spin to try and validate some of the overly draconic GSL.

Isn't it enough to know they ruined a pony making a license for us?

 

[WizarDru]

Isn't it enough to know they ruined a pony making a license for us?

Maybe they used too many monkeys.

 

[Sunderstone]

Isn't it enough to know they ruined a pony making a license for us?

My Little Pony 4E! Wasnt that the target audience anyway?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Bottom Line is that I never bought third party stuff ever, until the OGL. Necromancer Games in particular was an eye opener for me, then Paizo with its Dungeon Mag work, followed by Goodman etc.
As a consumer, Im guessing this had to be great for the hobby as it made me buy more stuff from more 3PP. Im sure I wasnt alone either. Anything that can boost sales for our "niche" hobby is good, again imho.

I really cant see how Mearls can see anything in the OGL as a failure. Im guessing his opinions are more "corporate" in nature, also that he knows where his bills get paid..

Simply actually read his blog entry.
He is not only saying the OGL was a failure. He is not only saying it was a success.
He is pointing the things out that it was a success in (and in this, he basically acknowledge that he might not be where he is today without the OGL, when he speaks of the "Designer Training" the OGL allows), and where it fails. He is actually mentioning 3 aspects he sees as successes and one that he sees as a failure.

It's not a surprise that some people haven't seem to read his actual post, since this is several pages into the thread, but I would still recommend doing so before saying anything about what Mike wrote or ascribing motives to him.

Excerpts:
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Wwrning:
They are selective and highlight the "OGL is not a failure" parts of his post. But even there I am selective, and post only the part that highlight - in my eyes - the positive personal effect of the OGL he perceives. I will not post his entire blog here. If you want to read it, visit his blog. If you want to criticize him for things he didn't say, feel totally free to ignore his blog, and just go on. This is the internet, everyone can be wrong about something here.

Training: This is likely the most underrated aspect of the OGL: it allowed freelancers to better migrate skills from one company to the next. Good freelance RPG writers and designers are in critically short supply. Anyone telling you otherwise has low standards. The OGL made it more likely for writers to build and sustain a skill set useful to a number of companies. By extension, gamers saw better designed stuff come from designers who could spend a few years working on the same game.

And So?
I don't think it's fair to say that open gaming was a failure, it just took a different path in gaming when compared to software. The important thing is that it got people to think like open source developers and act like them on an individual scale, even if we didn't see the same network of successive improvements, bug fixing, and distribution.

I think that, in the future, we'll look back at this decade as the time that a broad community of RPG players formally took on the mantle of designers. Open gaming, the indie movement, and PDF sales have made it more possible now than ever for a good GM with a knack for writing to put together a book and get it out there for others to see.

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[Sunderstone]

I really cant see how Mearls can see anything in the OGL as a failure.

notice what was bolded, I never said the whole OGL.

Again, its all imho as a consumer. As for the motives.... just my opinion. Everyone has one.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

notice what was bolded, I never said the whole OGL.

Again, its all imho as a consumer. As for the motives.... just my opinion. Everyone has one.

Sorry for jumping on your post, specifically. I have read a few others that might have been more like what I am criticizing, and I just felt I hat to react on that.

But I think if you want to understand why Mike sees a certain aspect of the OGL as a failure, read his post. Whether it's _really_ a failure or just something a license alone can never achieve is another matter.

 

[Sunderstone]

Sorry for jumping on your post, specifically. I have read a few others that might have been more like what I am criticizing, and I just felt I hat to react on that.

But I think if you want to understand why Mike sees a certain aspect of the OGL as a failure, read his post. Whether it's _really_ a failure or just something a license alone can never achieve is another matter.

No harm done.
Will do, but tbh, Im tired of all the retroactive criticisms of the OGL in light of the new GSL etc. The OGL is a done deal anyway, time for us all to move on.

Mearls is entitled to his opinion too, everyone has one.

 

[Nellisir]

I think you missed my point.
No, it does not have to beat 4e in sales to be successful. Right now nothing is going to beat 4e as you say.
But it has to beat 4e in rpg design and appeal to be successful -4e has issues and Pathfinder needs to do better. This is what I am talking about. And when 5e hits the door, if Pathfinder has not come close to this goal, it will have to face even higher competition than it does now. If it can't, it s future will be in serious doubt.

Someday I'll learn my lesson and stop replying to you.

You're always talking about "success". The OGL will only be successful if it beats D&D. Pathfinder will only be successful if it beats 4e. I think your definition of success might be different from everyone else's. Storyteller, GURPS, Shadowrun, Runequest -- none of these have beat D&D or 4e, but they're all successes. Pepsi doesn't have to beat Coke to be a success. All Pathfinder needs to do to be a "success" is find an sustained audience large enough to pay their bills. Pathfinder and 4e, though related, are not the same game and will not appeal to the same audiences. There is no magic formula for an RPG, no one-size-fits-all, even within a narrow category like "combat & exploration-oriented fantasy RPG"

 

[Erik Mona]

I haven't given it that much thought, but what I want is simple to say, less simple to do.

What I want is Pathfinder to work seamlessly with my 3.5 books. And that includes the PH. I want to be able to mix freely, and e.g. use one class from the PH with one class from Pathfinder.

That to me is what I want. I realise that such a thing might not be at all possible, but the closer Pathfinder is to such an ideal situation, the larger the possibility of me buying it.

/M

Do you consider your 3.0 and 3.5 books compatible? If so, I think we're fine. If not, I think we may need to drill down a bit more about just how precise your definition of compatible is.

--Erik

 

[Erik Mona]

And not alone, if I'm reading the signs properly.

Now that I see 4e is a non-option for projects, I'm watching Pathfinder very closely. So far, I like what I'm seeing.

Great! I am inspired by your past work and would love to have you join us.

We'll be posting guidelines of how to use a Pathfinder RPG compatibility logo soon, but it will basically amount to inclusion of a couple lines of legal text that pretty much say "This logo is used with permission, but Paizo bears no legal responsibility for the contents of this product and hasn't even read it." That sort of thing.

Using the rules requires no agreement beyond the OGL, of course, because the Pathfinder RPG rules are 100% open. The only thing we're closing off from the entire RPG project so far is the name of our gods in the cleric section. Other than that, it's all free for the use of the community.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC