Mike Mearls On the OGL

[Maggan]

You couldn't use mechanics from other books, so they pretty much forced publishers to "fork" D&D and make their own systems so they could increase the number of things they could make use of.

Interesting. If WotC had been a custodian of the 3.5 OGC, expanding on the SRD with proven and tested variants and improvements, then the publishers might have felt more motivated to share and improve the core.

/M

 

[JDJblatherings]

Wayne is right on the mark. Wotc didn't maintain the OGL. They did one major rewrite that not everyone agreeed with.

Luckily since wotc has divorced himself from the OGL they have no more voice then all the rest of us in it's future and in practice will have no voice.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Mister Mearls is a talented game designer but i have t oquestion the notion of OGL failure. Or the notion the "experiment" was even close to failure.

Arcan Evolved/Unearthed, Conan, Iron Heroes, Castles & Crusades, True 20, Cthulhu-D20, Mutants and Mastermindsand Spycraft. Were not OGL failures.

Green Ronin, Necromancer Games, Troll Lord Games, Malhavoc Press, Goodman Games, RPG-objects and Mongoose and more were not OGL failures.

The OGL was a smashing success. It just wasn't all flowing into the pockets of WOTC.

"Problems" were not universally identified and fixed in the same manner because of the open nature of the beast. Not all issues are a problem in all circles. Art does not have one solution or response to a problem. RPGs are not software.

That was not the part that failed he is talking about. He was talking more about the "feed-back" cycle.

There is Arcana Evolved. But there are no products re-using the concepts of Arcana Evolved from other publishers.
There's Iron Heroes. There is no one that re-used its mechanical elements and build upon that.

All these True20, Modern20, Arcana Evolved, Iron Heroes, Grim Tales, they didn't build much upon each other. They didn't refine the game. They created new, individual games. They stand on their own, and have their unique appeal.

Maybe it's true that this can never happen as long as WotC still owns D&D, using their License. But maybe there's just no interest in this. Maybe all people really want are different game systems. They don't need an evolving game, they need only the game for their taste. It's "everyone gets his own FTP Client with his specific features" vs "There is one FTP Client that everyone likes and has all the features".

Maybe mearls is wrong in believing that this could have happened at all. Role-players are diverse and even the subset of role-players that focus on D&D are to diverse to create an iterative process leading to a generally better game. Judging from our "Edition Wars", that might indeed be the case.

 

[Yair]

Whether the OGL was a failure or not could only be established in the few years to come. If its use continues and grows without WotC's support than it was a success. If its use stagnates and is limited to a few niche games, played by a small part of the gaming community (and practically anything except D&D and WoD currently is, I believe), then it would have mediocre success. If its use diminishes until it is used only by a rare few fringes of the gaming community (like, say, the current Ars Magica fan community) than it would have been a failure, at least for now.

I do kinda agree with Mearls that the OGL has its failings, and lack of repetetive improvement is part of them. The main failing of the OGL, IMHO, is its failure to prevent crippled content. I imagine roleplaying games would be better right now if, for example, Monte Cook's products could be easily utilized by another publisher.

 

[wayne62682]

Right. The basis of open-source is that you have people contributing to one central codebase. In the barest of senses the OGL fulfills that criteria. But with open-source, either everything is open or nothing is. You can't make certain modules open and certain modules off-limits (at least to my knowledge. There are several open-source licenses so maybe one of them does allow that). The OGL wouldn't be a "failure" (in WotC's eyes) if they were more willing to add content to it, and weren't so afraid of people using their things without paying the "use tax".

What doomed them was that they came in with an expectation (presumably "This will allow 3rd party publishers to support D&D via adventures and additions"), and when faced with people saying "Hmm... I like this rule, but these two have got to go" and making a fork of the system, getting pissed and saying "You weren't supposed to fork our system, you were supposed to use it as-is and add to it!". That's why the new GSL is so restrictive - they don't want people changing their "perfect" system, even when it's clearly imperfect. They want to retain the central codebase and let others develop add-ons for it, not modify it. More Microsoft than PostgreSQL.

I propose that we start calling WotC "WotCSoft" in honor of their new strides towards a proprietary system.

 

[philreed]

There's Iron Heroes. There is no one that re-used its mechanical elements and build upon that.

I wanted to. Hell, I still want to write a PDF of new zones.

These days, though, I don't really have time for many projects.

 

[JDJblatherings]

That was not the part that failed he is talking about. He was talking more about the "feed-back" cycle.

I've seen rules additions and renovations form many of those products you mentioned turn up over the years. They were not simply closed off-shoots of development.

The "feed-back" cycle only had one point where there was a problem: WOTC.

 

[ThirdWizard]

What about the failure of gaining traction outside of Wizards of the Coast and publishers who got into the market under the OGL blanket? To me the biggest disappointment of the OGL was that it didn't seduce established companies in nor did any new systems really expand upon the base of the game (barring a few very notable exceptions). I guess that can't really be considered a failure exactly, but it does speak for the small traction that I think OGL ultimately has.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Right. The basis of open-source is that you have people contributing to one central codebase. In the barest of senses the OGL fulfills that criteria. But with open-source, either everything is open or nothing is. You can't make certain modules open and certain modules off-limits (at least to my knowledge. There are several open-source licenses so maybe one of them does allow that). The OGL wouldn't be a "failure" (in WotC's eyes) if they were more willing to add content to it, and weren't so afraid of people using their things without paying the "use tax".

What doomed them was that they came in with an expectation (presumably "This will allow 3rd party publishers to support D&D via adventures and additions"), and when faced with people saying "Hmm... I like this rule, but these two have got to go" and making a fork of the system, getting pissed and saying "You weren't supposed to fork our system, you were supposed to use it as-is and add to it!". That's why the new GSL is so restrictive - they don't want people changing their "perfect" system, even when it's clearly imperfect. They want to retain the central codebase and let others develop add-ons for it, not modify it. More Microsoft than PostgreSQL.

I propose that we start calling WotC "WotCSoft" in honor of their new strides towards a proprietary system.

You wouldn't be the first to compare them to microsoft. Ultimiately, in many ways it fits. They are often hated, but still have done a lot in their respective field to advance it. But they also hate to give anything away for free or re-used by others.

The GSLs goals are still to drive the WotC sales by allowing others to enrich the game and thus appeal to more. D&D is the "operating system", and others should provide the software running on the system, but shouldn't muck around with the OS.

Unlike Microsoft, though, WotC didn't offer secondary services (like training for Adminstrators/DMs and stuff like that). Maybe the DDI can be seen as changing this?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

What about the failure of gaining traction outside of Wizards of the Coast and publishers who got into the market under the OGL blanket? To me the biggest disappointment of the OGL was that it didn't seduce established companies in nor did any new systems really expand upon the base of the game (barring a few very notable exceptions). I guess that can't really be considered a failure exactly, but it does speak for the small traction that I think OGL ultimately has.

That's an interesting aspect. The new World of Darkness game is not using the OGL. Neither is Shadowrun 4E or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

There seem to be only smaller publishers that create any non-D&D related games with the OGL. But maybe the OGL is the only reason why they even try to do this, hoping that someone else enhances is with OGL supplements that can drive their original game?