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OGL? SUccess or failure?
- Thread starter Rasyr
- Start date
The Shaman
First Post
It's the theory of network externalities applied to gaming - basically it means that the more people who use a commodity the more benefit they receive from it.Korimyr the Rat said:
A common example is the telephone. The more people who have telephones, the more benefit you get from having one, since there are more people you can call.
The idea as applied to gaming is, the more gamers who use a common system, the more valuable that system becomes. I think WotC's goal was to sell a PHB with every d20 game introduced by a third-party publisher (the ubiquitous "Requires the use of..." tagline at work).
wingsandsword
Legend
Look at where the gaming industry would be without the OGL. The OGL has given us a huge variety of manufacturers, gaming styles, settings, and games, many of which would have been ignored utterly by the gaming public if not for being (at least loosely) compatible with d20. How many times has a game company brought a licensed RPG or an interesting new setting to market, only to hear "I would have bought it if it was d20". If it was completely unrelated, many gamers will generally ignore it. Yes, a lot of d20 materials brought out early on were utter rubbish, but a few gems have emerged over time
Saying that the OGL is a failure because other game systems still exist is a fallacy. The idea was, in part, to decrease transition time between games, so that you didn't have to relearn everything to play in every new game.
I live right next to a very large, very well stocked FLGS, and frankly, at least 1/2 their retail space is devoted to d20 type merchandise, with most of the rest being WW, then GURPS, and everything else. You can mention HARP and frankly some systems I've never even heard of (Burning Wheel, what the heck is that?), but their share of the market, and gamers minds, is minimal.
Even if the "d20" market is split from the core 3.5 crowd, the variants on d20 are still fairly similar. Spycraft, Arcana Evolved, C&C, Iron Heroes and so on are still pretty similar to "core d20/D&D". Transition time and effort to go between them is much less than going, say, from GURPS or DeadLands to D&D. You'll never have the One True Orthodox Game System which is used by all. Never going to happen, d20/OGL is as close as you're going to get. There are too many differences in play style, preferences, and genres for there to be a One True Game.
For example, the girlfriend of one of my friends decided to try out RPG's. After a trip though our FLGS, she picked up her first book: Blue Rose. Now, when she had rules questions, she asked her boyfriend and myself for advice. Neither one of us knew anything specifically about the True20 ruleset, but we could easily answer her basic questions with a quick glance through the rulebook to familiarize ourselves with the changes and basic tenets of d20 design. Although we had no experience specialized with that system, we were still able to answer most basic questions and pick up the differences very quickly. If not for the OGL, her first game may have been something we'd had no knowledge of, and would have been utterly unable to help her.
Also, as has been pointed out, the OGL (combined with a more enlightened attitude about IP from large corporatiosn) has lead to a virtual renaissance online of RPG's. Increases in fan sites, fan produced RPG material, online gaming communities and sites (like this one, think TSR of 10 years ago would have tolerated a site like ENWorld's very existence?).
The OGL issued in a new era of gaming, and it's still unfolding, but it's clearly been good for the industry in the long term so far, and for the forseeable future.
Saying that the OGL is a failure because other game systems still exist is a fallacy. The idea was, in part, to decrease transition time between games, so that you didn't have to relearn everything to play in every new game.
I live right next to a very large, very well stocked FLGS, and frankly, at least 1/2 their retail space is devoted to d20 type merchandise, with most of the rest being WW, then GURPS, and everything else. You can mention HARP and frankly some systems I've never even heard of (Burning Wheel, what the heck is that?), but their share of the market, and gamers minds, is minimal.
Even if the "d20" market is split from the core 3.5 crowd, the variants on d20 are still fairly similar. Spycraft, Arcana Evolved, C&C, Iron Heroes and so on are still pretty similar to "core d20/D&D". Transition time and effort to go between them is much less than going, say, from GURPS or DeadLands to D&D. You'll never have the One True Orthodox Game System which is used by all. Never going to happen, d20/OGL is as close as you're going to get. There are too many differences in play style, preferences, and genres for there to be a One True Game.
For example, the girlfriend of one of my friends decided to try out RPG's. After a trip though our FLGS, she picked up her first book: Blue Rose. Now, when she had rules questions, she asked her boyfriend and myself for advice. Neither one of us knew anything specifically about the True20 ruleset, but we could easily answer her basic questions with a quick glance through the rulebook to familiarize ourselves with the changes and basic tenets of d20 design. Although we had no experience specialized with that system, we were still able to answer most basic questions and pick up the differences very quickly. If not for the OGL, her first game may have been something we'd had no knowledge of, and would have been utterly unable to help her.
Also, as has been pointed out, the OGL (combined with a more enlightened attitude about IP from large corporatiosn) has lead to a virtual renaissance online of RPG's. Increases in fan sites, fan produced RPG material, online gaming communities and sites (like this one, think TSR of 10 years ago would have tolerated a site like ENWorld's very existence?).
The OGL issued in a new era of gaming, and it's still unfolding, but it's clearly been good for the industry in the long term so far, and for the forseeable future.
It's been mentioned, kinda
Some of the people above have pointed out that the D20 system was at least one consistent ruleset that could be used to cover several genres, and introduce gamers to roleplaying. That is one of the greater strengths I see of at least 3.0 and 3.5, they were simpler IMHO than RIFTS, AD&D and many other systems, it's consistent with most of the die rolls, just roll the d20 and your there. But I think the OGL helped them determine how successful they were.
I think the OGL encourages creations of different base systems, and gives an avenue for playtesting to tweak and better them. It helps publishers/creators find out if something they're doing works.
As an avid roleplayer/GM I may enjoy browsing new books, but if I can't give my players easy access to the rules to start a new game, it's gonna be a lot harder to give them the depth and choices I like to offer. Having even just the core rules OGL gives me a place to send players who want to look at the system before they agree to play, and gives them a place to start thinking about their characters and how to make them work.
To put my 2 cents in what I'd like to see OGL and worked on is a system that's not class based. While I've seen a few games that seem to have interesting ideas where they used advancements that let you buy what attributes you want to improve, I think opening them could let the roleplaying community find and tweak systems that feel more natural, and find systems that work better for each genre or style of play.
Some of the people above have pointed out that the D20 system was at least one consistent ruleset that could be used to cover several genres, and introduce gamers to roleplaying. That is one of the greater strengths I see of at least 3.0 and 3.5, they were simpler IMHO than RIFTS, AD&D and many other systems, it's consistent with most of the die rolls, just roll the d20 and your there. But I think the OGL helped them determine how successful they were.
I think the OGL encourages creations of different base systems, and gives an avenue for playtesting to tweak and better them. It helps publishers/creators find out if something they're doing works.
As an avid roleplayer/GM I may enjoy browsing new books, but if I can't give my players easy access to the rules to start a new game, it's gonna be a lot harder to give them the depth and choices I like to offer. Having even just the core rules OGL gives me a place to send players who want to look at the system before they agree to play, and gives them a place to start thinking about their characters and how to make them work.
To put my 2 cents in what I'd like to see OGL and worked on is a system that's not class based. While I've seen a few games that seem to have interesting ideas where they used advancements that let you buy what attributes you want to improve, I think opening them could let the roleplaying community find and tweak systems that feel more natural, and find systems that work better for each genre or style of play.
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Glyfair
Explorer
Rasyr said:
I believe there are several assumptions made here that are not accurate. First, if I'm interested in using some other companies OGC, I probably bought the product myself already. I don't feel that having an online SRD is necessary for good OGC to be spread. Sure, having it widely available for free will probably make it more widespread. However, that's not an incentive to put out professional products with such material included.
I believe that the number of gaming publishers who don't pick up other companies products is miniscule (especially in the d20/OGL market). Word of good product spreads and other companies want to use it.
Secondly, I think few companies would complain about someone making use of part of a product or referring to a product. Their concern would be with making the bulk of their product superfluous. For example, if someone had an online SRD, a book that's a collection of magic items wouldn't be attractive if someone was just putting all the important information online.
One good example is Freeport. Almost everything was OGC, and several companies put Freeport in their campaign worlds because it was OGC. They didn't feel the need to publish the majority of the product, they just referred to it.
Turanil
First Post
I agree with all your points yet...Rasyr said:
I remember that one of the point of the OGL was that if all games use the same d20 system, gamers will already know how to play it, so won't be discouraged to try new game systems (although I don't see why this should benefit D&D so much...). What about this aspect in your analysis?
Anyway, I won't try an analysis myself but just note this: Would there be only D&D and other different game systems, I would probably have bought no more D&D books than I have, then turned to a new game system. Currently, I have bought so many d20 books, that I don't want to try another kind of system. However, I am mainly buying third party publishers books rather than WotC books. So what? In my case it's not sure that the OGL has had a positive or negative influence on my purchase of WotC products.
I think that the OGL encouraged to have more (many more) gaming supplements produced, but then had no real effects on increasing or decreasing WotC sales.
trancejeremy
Adventurer
I think the OGL has definitely been successful to a degree. But it hasn't been nearly as good as I hoped, and in fact, has sort of fizzled in one big way.
While WOTC played fairly nice with the d20 license thing, other companies have not been nearly so open with their offshoots of d20. Which has crippled the whole idea, I think.
For instance, take AEG's recent Spycraft 2.0. Great game. But much like the original Spycraft, the prospect of any sort of real 3rd party support is dubious at best. Since AEG apparently has no equivalent of the d20 license for companies to use "Spycraft" without a lot of hassle, and their mangling of the OGL makes it impossible to use without possible legal repurcussions (Most notably, including Star Wars in Section 15 of the OGL, which is simply wrong, since Star Wars is not an Open Content book).
So, if you like Spycraft, you're basically stuck with buying whatever AEG decides to put out. Which might be a lot or not. Or stuff you are interested in or not. You don't have much choice. Which is why ultimately d20 Modern is a better choice for a modern day game, even though IMHO the rules aren't as good. Because d20 Modern will have stuff from a myriad of different publishers.
Now, to a certain extent, this is understandable. Companies don't want to build up a brand name and then have 3rd parties diminish its value. They also don't want other companies competing with their products. WOTC doesn't have to worry about that stuff since D&D is already pretty much a household name (and they put up a wall between it and d20 somewhat), and they already operate on a scale that no one else approaches. But for the consumer/gamer, it sort of stinks.
Also, as an aside, I don't think the OGL prevents another Rob Repp (and SKR - I still have bad feelings towards him from his days as TSR's net enforcer) thing. The OGL is aimed at books, so there's a lot of vagueness in it's application towards things like websites (and software) that would let lawyers attack, if unleashed. And even with books, there's still a lot of slopiness when it comes to applying the OGL (like in Spycraft). Not that I think WOTC would ever do something like that. Unless the owner of Palladium somehow buys them.
While WOTC played fairly nice with the d20 license thing, other companies have not been nearly so open with their offshoots of d20. Which has crippled the whole idea, I think.
For instance, take AEG's recent Spycraft 2.0. Great game. But much like the original Spycraft, the prospect of any sort of real 3rd party support is dubious at best. Since AEG apparently has no equivalent of the d20 license for companies to use "Spycraft" without a lot of hassle, and their mangling of the OGL makes it impossible to use without possible legal repurcussions (Most notably, including Star Wars in Section 15 of the OGL, which is simply wrong, since Star Wars is not an Open Content book).
So, if you like Spycraft, you're basically stuck with buying whatever AEG decides to put out. Which might be a lot or not. Or stuff you are interested in or not. You don't have much choice. Which is why ultimately d20 Modern is a better choice for a modern day game, even though IMHO the rules aren't as good. Because d20 Modern will have stuff from a myriad of different publishers.
Now, to a certain extent, this is understandable. Companies don't want to build up a brand name and then have 3rd parties diminish its value. They also don't want other companies competing with their products. WOTC doesn't have to worry about that stuff since D&D is already pretty much a household name (and they put up a wall between it and d20 somewhat), and they already operate on a scale that no one else approaches. But for the consumer/gamer, it sort of stinks.
Also, as an aside, I don't think the OGL prevents another Rob Repp (and SKR - I still have bad feelings towards him from his days as TSR's net enforcer) thing. The OGL is aimed at books, so there's a lot of vagueness in it's application towards things like websites (and software) that would let lawyers attack, if unleashed. And even with books, there's still a lot of slopiness when it comes to applying the OGL (like in Spycraft). Not that I think WOTC would ever do something like that. Unless the owner of Palladium somehow buys them.
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I'd say it was a major success in any reasonable definition - it continues to drive sales of the PHB & core rulebooks, so it fulfils WoTC's aims. It has greatly grown the RPG industry and the hobby. If 4e is non-OGL that just means 3rd party producers will stick with the 3.5 rules and WoTC will lose the benefit of the OGL as it will no longer drive sales of their core books.
TheGM
First Post
A lot of people here are gut-reacting, and a few have definitely consumed the Kool-Aid.
Rasyr is not far off, and he's right, his last point will be the nail in the coffin.
If 4.0 is not OGC, OGC will die. There will be "grognards" who play it until they die, but the profitability factor will be severely diminished. Unless someone pulls a rabbit out of a hat, that will be the death knell. Just the number of people spending their precious dollars on 4.0 will cause much implosion unless the market has smoothed out before then.
It was a good idea, and definitely grew the base of roleplayers, but it is indeed doomed.
Rasyr is not far off, and he's right, his last point will be the nail in the coffin.
If 4.0 is not OGC, OGC will die. There will be "grognards" who play it until they die, but the profitability factor will be severely diminished. Unless someone pulls a rabbit out of a hat, that will be the death knell. Just the number of people spending their precious dollars on 4.0 will cause much implosion unless the market has smoothed out before then.
It was a good idea, and definitely grew the base of roleplayers, but it is indeed doomed.
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