Mike Mearls On the OGL

[I'm A Banana]

Basically he's saying: it failed in one area (that he deems important), but overall it is a success.

Uh-hu.

This thread is weird. Mearls is saying OGL is ultimately a good thing, but that it didn't quite work like the Open Source software that it was analogous to did, because so many people wanted so many different things than D&D.

I agree.

I don't think this is a bad thing. I think, ultimately, that this makes D&D a better game, because it's never the perfect game for everyone.

I think the new GSL, in limiting the 4e mechanics, won't have nearly the same positive effect on the game, yet True20 and Pathfinder, in remaining open, will continue to improve and modify the d20 system itself.

 

[chriton227]

Anything that ends in d20 fits my description of "publishers who got into the market under the OGL blanket." I'm talking about non-d20 things. I'm talking about not the expansion of d20 gaming but the expansion of (edit) the use of (/edit) the license. If the OGL remained only for d20 games, then it has no traction in the greater RPG community. If almost all you can find published under the OGL is d20, then it's not much of a movement at all IMO.

I thought the entire point of the OGL was for publishing d20 system products and derivitives, why would someone use the OGL for something non-d20 when the primary benefit of the OGL was access to using the d20 system in your product? If you want to open source a non-d20 product, you would be better off using a license better suited for it, whether that be something like Creative Commons or whether you come up with your own tied to the core mechanics of the system you are trying to open, otherwise you are tied in to WotC's restrictions for very little benefit. This would be akin to using an open source license from Microsoft that gave you specific permission to use portions of the MS code base, but then using it to publish a Java program that doesn't use the MS code base at all.

I also know at least one of those publishers (Pinnacle) that didn't "get into the market under the OGL blanket", at least not unless the OGL was around back in '94-'95 when Pinnacle started publishing Deadlands, Great Rail War, Hell on Earth, etc. I'm pretty sure White Wolf was around before the OGL too, given that I remember my FLGS reducing the shelf space for D&D 2nd Ed. to make room for V:tM books.

I'm really not understanding the point you are trying to make. At first, it seemed to me that you were saying that you feel a failing of the OGL is that it didn't seduce established game publishers into producing OGL works, but then when you are provided with examples of established game publishers that did produce OGL works, you hand-wave them away saying "they put d20 at the end of the product title, so they don't count". Are you trying to say that the failing is that the OGL didn't attract established companies, or is it that the established companies didn't use the OGL to open source their existing products without converting them to d20?

To have companies release their non-d20 system under the OGL, the OGL would need to be maintained by a separate organization rather than a specific player in the market. The organization could be made up of representatives from many publishers, but as an entity it would need to be independant from any given specific publisher. I know very few companies that would be willing to let a direct competitor unilaterally decide the terms under which their products were distributed, and another publisher opening their proprietary system under WotC's OGL would be doing just that.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yes, but you didn't have to grab the top of your head off the ceiling and jam it back down on top of a steam furnace before you posted.

EDIT: And then edit your response down to just one profanity.

EDIT 2: And I like Mustrum. God forbid I'd responded to someone else.

I respond to this post because it's shorter.

You're right and I am wrong. At least towards True20 and Grim Tales, I guess. It's easy to paint with a broad brush.

But then I say: I don't feel like True20 or Grim Tales are a success. I don't play them. I wasn't even interested in enough to buy them. I don't think that is failure of the quality of True20 or Grim Tales, it might be more a sign of a general symptom - people don't want multiple similar games. And that might indeed indicate a failure of WotC, because if they had created their "GrimTales/True20" variant as an (OGL) D&D game, the OGL might have looked more successful...

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, considering that the GSL looks pretty much the same as the STL (Yes, yes, I know it's not the same, sit down in the back), I think that we'll see some pretty decent stuff for 4e, same as we did for 3e. Let's not forget, it wasn't until after the bubble burst that people dropped the STL.

For example, Mongoose's Seafarer's Handbook is STL, I believe the original Creature Collection was STL, as was the Book of Eldritch Might.

So, it's not like we were starved for chewy goodness under the STL.

Second, WotC decided that the OGL was their enemy a while ago. I think we were very lucky to get psionics in the ogl. It has been a while since they lifted a finger to support open gaming. And I give them full credit, the ogl wouldn't have been there at all if not for them (even if it is a significantly different "them"). And I also don't think they had the slightest obligation to support it. But if you plant some roses and then never tend to them, it isn't a fair judgment of the roses to say they didn't grow.

I've seen this repeated time and time again. And, I've always asked the same question: What did 3rd party publishers add to the SRD?

Why does everyone get to crap all over WOTC for not putting their books up, but, everyone else gets a free ride?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

But then I say: I don't feel like True20 or Grim Tales are a success. I don't play them.

This would fall under criteria of "fart in a hurricane" I mentioned earlier. I'm not offended that you don't play my little vanity press game. Honestly.

And that might indeed indicate a failure of WotC, because if they had created their "GrimTales/True20" variant as an (OGL) D&D game, the OGL might have looked more successful...

I'll repeat: It's incumbent upon WotC to find, incorporate, and therefore legitimize OGC rules innovations.

I honestly don't understand anyone saying that the OGL was a failure because, essentially, nobody succeeded in supplanting D&D with an alternate, albeit improved, ruleset.

Nobody COULD have supplanted D&D even if anybody had WANTED to.

This specific "failure" of the OGL is entirely WotC's.

 

[Fifth Element]

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

Wouldn't it be much more pithy if we incorporated a dollar sign somehow? Like "WotC$oft"? That's what we like to do, right?

 

[Nadaka]

To say that OGL failed because there was not an iterative design process with a centralized evolving core is not quite correct. It did not develop a centralized evolving core because there was never a system in place to aggregate that core.

For an open project, even in the software world, if you want to receive submissions, you need a method of receiving them. Otherwise you have no choice but to watch your project fork. WotC utterly failed to provide this. If that is what they really wanted, they would have deployed some kind of version control system with an open portal for change/addition submissions. This can be done either manually, by opening a mailbox/email with personel dedicated to reviewing and incorporating submissions into the SRD. or it could be more of an automated system where change submissions are queued automatically and displayed for public review. To be finalized would require sufficient "votes" from the community before being admitted to the "code base". Of course there are other ways of doing this as well.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I've seen this repeated time and time again. And, I've always asked the same question: What did 3rd party publishers add to the SRD?

Why does everyone get to crap all over WOTC for not putting their books up, but, everyone else gets a free ride?

And I believe you were slapped on this previously. Is it "Thank you sir, may I have another!" time?

3rd party publishers can't "add" to the SRD.

3rd party publishers can release portions of their work as OGC.

With respect to the aforementioned slapping, it was pointed out to you the vast swathes of 3rd party OGC that was 100% Open.

Start with True20.

And stop asking the same ill-informed question "time and time again."

 

[Nadaka]

And I believe you were slapped on this previously. Is it "Thank you sir, may I have another!" time?

3rd party publishers can't "add" to the SRD.

3rd party publishers can release portions of their work as OGC.

With respect to the aforementioned slapping, it was pointed out to you the vast swathes of 3rd party OGC that was 100% Open.

Start with True20.

And stop asking the same ill-informed question "time and time again."

I picked up a copy of true20 revised yesterday at books a million, it was the last one left sitting right next to stacks and stacks of unsold 4e books.

 

[JDJblatherings]

I've seen this repeated time and time again. And, I've always asked the same question: What did 3rd party publishers add to the SRD?

Why does everyone get to crap all over WOTC for not putting their books up, but, everyone else gets a free ride?

In effect every single company that relased anything under the OGL added to the SRD.