Role-playing is a culture of remixing. Take some Scarred Lands, add in Freeport, mix in some Arcana Evolved classes, maybe a race and some equipment from Rokugan, and hey presto, a campaign world! Not necessarily a cut-and-paste world, but something unique and organic that never comes out the same way twice.
Every RPG publisher knows (or should know) that his adventure or setting or rules are immediately and inherently going to spawn hundreds of derivative works. Most of those works will never be published and it's entirely plausible that many of them will be, at best, awful.
But some people will put together works that blow your socks off. You know, pour your heart and soul into something for years on end, and it becomes bigger than the sum of its parts. You all know that, you've all been in campaigns led by passionate DMs. You've seen (or should have seen) people with no publishing background come out of nowhere and put together the most mind-blowing stuff, firmly esablishing themselves in the pantheon of designers and writers. Some of you have been those people.
You know what? Having to ask permission stifles a lot of those people. It stifles their creativity and it stifles their voice. They turn their creativity elsewhere, where they can freely express themselves without restriction. I know this because I've seen it happen hundreds of times in the computer industry. I've seen it happen in the RPG industry.
Anybody could have made D+D-compatible products before 2000 if they had asked permission. A lot of them did. But you know, the day the d20 license became available, I felt a sudden surge of freedom. Suddenly, there were hundreds of new entrants into a tiny market. Where were all of these creative people? Why hadn't they gone and got a D+D license the year before? Why did they invent their own, incompatible rulesets when all they really wanted was to create something that could be used their favorite game, which was someone else's IP?
I mean, a lot of those books had incredible writing, spectacular vision, and were overflowing with imagination and reinterpretation. Surely they could have got a license years before and been published? Right? Right?
I love what Monte did with Arcana Unearthed. It inspired me enough to write my own campaign setting. But I ended up with something I couldn't publish, because I didn't have enough confidence in myself to believe that Monte would even entertain a request from someone who's not part of the establishment. And, forgive me, I couldn't untangle the OGL declaration, which I got conflicting legal advice on. Even if I was granted permission, it's too much stress, it's likely to be too restrictive for what I wanted to do, and the very act of asking forces me to deal with lawyers and think about contractual obligations and so forth.
I love True20. I love that they used the OGL license. I respect Green Ronin and will continue to buy their products. But I don't want to play whatever games and jump through whatever hoops they plan to put licensees through. Even if I qualify, even if they love my ideas, even if they exert no creative control, even if I was an established author. But I don't want to ask their permission to make compatible products. And I'm not going to play games with indrect referencing, and I sure as heck am not going to add 40 pages of True20 rules to an otherwise 4-page PDF that I think is an innovative and fun product. So, I'm going to put my creative energies to better use, in a way that I can freely express myself. The d20 license - sure it's arbitrary and could be changed retroactively, but I know the usage rules up front and I don't have to ask permission. And that makes all the difference in the world. It means I *won't* be wasting my energy only to be turned down. It means I won't be investing money and time that could be far better spent making the product itself top-notch. It means I will be able to sleep at night, and know that I can remix to my heart's content without worrying about rules that might not even be legally enforceable in my country.
I decided to write this because I feel so passionately about it, because I want you guys to understand that there are other considerations and consequences and motivations when fans start complaining about terms and conditions. That choosing your level of openness and licensing stance affects your engagement with your audience. Every single player is a potential GM, and every single GM is a potential writer/publisher. And they're all passionate and creative, and that when you inspire them they may very well want to share. And that motive still dwarfs the profit motive in this industry. And so some of us, at least, look up to and want to build on those who share the most, and share the nicest.
I know some of you are business people first, but remember there are those of us who are gamers first - and having the tasted the freedom of d20 licensing, we don't want to wait another 30 years to get a chance to share everything we build with your IP. We won't stop building on what you write, you know that, we can't; but it *will* ultimately inhibit us in what we say and what we share.
Every RPG publisher knows (or should know) that his adventure or setting or rules are immediately and inherently going to spawn hundreds of derivative works. Most of those works will never be published and it's entirely plausible that many of them will be, at best, awful.
But some people will put together works that blow your socks off. You know, pour your heart and soul into something for years on end, and it becomes bigger than the sum of its parts. You all know that, you've all been in campaigns led by passionate DMs. You've seen (or should have seen) people with no publishing background come out of nowhere and put together the most mind-blowing stuff, firmly esablishing themselves in the pantheon of designers and writers. Some of you have been those people.
You know what? Having to ask permission stifles a lot of those people. It stifles their creativity and it stifles their voice. They turn their creativity elsewhere, where they can freely express themselves without restriction. I know this because I've seen it happen hundreds of times in the computer industry. I've seen it happen in the RPG industry.
Anybody could have made D+D-compatible products before 2000 if they had asked permission. A lot of them did. But you know, the day the d20 license became available, I felt a sudden surge of freedom. Suddenly, there were hundreds of new entrants into a tiny market. Where were all of these creative people? Why hadn't they gone and got a D+D license the year before? Why did they invent their own, incompatible rulesets when all they really wanted was to create something that could be used their favorite game, which was someone else's IP?
I mean, a lot of those books had incredible writing, spectacular vision, and were overflowing with imagination and reinterpretation. Surely they could have got a license years before and been published? Right? Right?
I love what Monte did with Arcana Unearthed. It inspired me enough to write my own campaign setting. But I ended up with something I couldn't publish, because I didn't have enough confidence in myself to believe that Monte would even entertain a request from someone who's not part of the establishment. And, forgive me, I couldn't untangle the OGL declaration, which I got conflicting legal advice on. Even if I was granted permission, it's too much stress, it's likely to be too restrictive for what I wanted to do, and the very act of asking forces me to deal with lawyers and think about contractual obligations and so forth.
I love True20. I love that they used the OGL license. I respect Green Ronin and will continue to buy their products. But I don't want to play whatever games and jump through whatever hoops they plan to put licensees through. Even if I qualify, even if they love my ideas, even if they exert no creative control, even if I was an established author. But I don't want to ask their permission to make compatible products. And I'm not going to play games with indrect referencing, and I sure as heck am not going to add 40 pages of True20 rules to an otherwise 4-page PDF that I think is an innovative and fun product. So, I'm going to put my creative energies to better use, in a way that I can freely express myself. The d20 license - sure it's arbitrary and could be changed retroactively, but I know the usage rules up front and I don't have to ask permission. And that makes all the difference in the world. It means I *won't* be wasting my energy only to be turned down. It means I won't be investing money and time that could be far better spent making the product itself top-notch. It means I will be able to sleep at night, and know that I can remix to my heart's content without worrying about rules that might not even be legally enforceable in my country.
I decided to write this because I feel so passionately about it, because I want you guys to understand that there are other considerations and consequences and motivations when fans start complaining about terms and conditions. That choosing your level of openness and licensing stance affects your engagement with your audience. Every single player is a potential GM, and every single GM is a potential writer/publisher. And they're all passionate and creative, and that when you inspire them they may very well want to share. And that motive still dwarfs the profit motive in this industry. And so some of us, at least, look up to and want to build on those who share the most, and share the nicest.
I know some of you are business people first, but remember there are those of us who are gamers first - and having the tasted the freedom of d20 licensing, we don't want to wait another 30 years to get a chance to share everything we build with your IP. We won't stop building on what you write, you know that, we can't; but it *will* ultimately inhibit us in what we say and what we share.
