Do you think the OGL was a good idea?

[Ahnehnois]

If WotC had gone with the OGL for 4e, I'd place money that we'd be playing some variety of 4e right now.

I think we'd be playing Trailblazer. Or just 3.5. I don't think anything was ever going to bring 4e to the people it didn't get to.

 

[Nellisir]

From the corporate perspective, I cannot for the life of me fathom how WotC's in-house counsel was convinced that this was a good idea. I'd love to see the back and forth e-mails from the legal/intellectual property rights perspective of things. Were I in the position of general counsel for WotC and someone had approached me during the development of 3E with the concept of the OGL, I'd have thrown up countless road-blocks because you were essentially giving away your toy for free... forever.

You should really dig up Ryan Dancey's comments on it, particularly his most recent (from...what? Two weeks ago? Might be linked from the front page.) He lays out the entire chain of logic and the arguments for it, and his perspective now. You're not going to get a more complete explanation, considering he was the one writing those exact emails to legal fourteen years ago. He also puts it into the context of the industry at the time, which is key. In many people's mind, it boiled down to go big (with the OGL), or close up D&D and go home. The whole tabletop roleplaying industry was tanking, and WotC was the only one with the means ($$$) and influence (via D&D) to take on the job of saving it.

 

[Morrus]

From the corporate perspective, I cannot for the life of me fathom how WotC's in-house counsel was convinced that this was a good idea. I'd love to see the back and forth e-mails from the legal/intellectual property rights perspective of things. Were I in the position of general counsel for WotC and someone had approached me during the development of 3E with the concept of the OGL, I'd have thrown up countless road-blocks because you were essentially giving away your toy for free... forever.

It's actually quite simple. Ryan Dancey (the author and instigator of the OGL) has explained it tons of times.

1. We just bought TSR, which collapsed due to producing a mass crapload of adventures and settings and splatbooks which were individually not profitable enough.
2. However, a well-supported game with craploads of adventures and settings and sourcebooks is more likely to be a successful game.
3. How do we ensure our game is well supported without having to make all those things ourselves? Ahah! We let everyone else do it for us; people who will be OK with the sales figures on individual items because they have much lower overheads than us and can thus more easily profit from them.

With the added effect that with the near death of D&D prior to TSR's acquisition, Dancey wanted to ensure D&D could never die. He succeeded.

 

[Nellisir]

I think we'd be playing Trailblazer. Or just 3.5. I don't think anything was ever going to bring 4e to the people it didn't get to.

Trailblazer was a response to the playtest Pathfinder documents (the names aren't just coincidental). It would have come out in some form, but who knows how much traction it would have gotten.

Without the OGL, publishers could EITHER modify 3e OR stick with the current D&D game. With an OGL, they could have modified 4e AND maintained a connection to the current D&D game. I'm sure a hybrid would have spring up extremely rapidly, but it would've been a 3e/4e hybrid (ie Book of Nine Swords), not another iteration of 3e.

 

[Kinak]

I feel like people forget that Pathfinder wasn't a response to 3.5 ending, or 4e, or WotC deciding not to use the OGL. Pathfinder was a response to a) WotC's extremely delayed schedule, so Paizo had to do SOMETHING to keep money coming in, and b) the GSL, which many companies took one look at and threw away.

If I recall correctly, by the time the original GSL was even released (June '08), Pathfinder was in beta testing for several months (March '08). The GSL had only been out for about a month when the Pathfinder Beta Books were available at GenCon.

I'm not really sure how much Paizo could have changed trajectory at that point, even if the original GSL had been awesome. Which, as you note, wasn't awesome.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Nellisir]

I feel like people forget that Pathfinder wasn't a response to 3.5 ending, or 4e, or WotC deciding not to use the OGL. Pathfinder was a response to a) WotC's extremely delayed schedule, so Paizo had to do SOMETHING to keep money coming in, and b) the GSL, which many companies took one look at and threw away.

Actually, as I recall it, Paizo had a two-part response. Golarion was the first part: they had to move forward on something, so they moved forward on a campaign setting. The Pathfinder rules were the second part: the GSL was horrid, so Paizo needed a ruleset.

I might be misremembering, but I clearly remember a lot of anticipation and eventual exasperation waiting for the GSL, and it basically being presented as a fait accompli by WotC, without consultation with the major 3rd party publishers, so they felt pretty blindsided by it.

 

[Nellisir]

If I recall correctly, by the time the original GSL was even released (June '08), Pathfinder was in beta testing for several months (March '08). The GSL had only been out for about a month when the Pathfinder Beta Books were available at GenCon.

I'm not really sure how much Paizo could have changed trajectory at that point, even if the original GSL had been awesome. Which, as you note, wasn't awesome.

Cheers!
Kinak

That sounds right too. Maybe PF was a response to the lack of communication, and Paizo was going to dual-stat things. I really remember Erik's disappointment with the GSL, though - I knew him through the AOL board back in 1996, and we hung out some at Gen Con in 1999 when 3e was announced, so I pay more attention to what he writes than I do to most other people.

Somebody who felt like actually finding out facts could probably work out a timeline just from Wikipedia or something, but I'm not that person.

 

[delericho]

And if you're arguing that companies would or will adopt a very limited OGL, just look at the GSL. The GSL is a handicapped (nearly decapitated) OGL/d20 STL hybrid. Compare the number of companies that use the OGL vs the GSL. It's hard to think of a metric by which the GSL could be considered a success.

If you want to end third-party support but don't want to look like you want to end third-party support, then something like the GSL is the way to go - a license that falls way short of what everyone wants and expects, followed by a review, followed (at some length) by a much looser version (that is still not what people want and expect)... and then the moment is gone. Oh well, we tried. So sorry.

FWIW, I don't think that was WotC's intentions - I'm inclined to think that's into tinfoil hat territory. But if you want a metric by which it's a 'success', there it is.

 

[billd91]

If I recall correctly, by the time the original GSL was even released (June '08), Pathfinder was in beta testing for several months (March '08). The GSL had only been out for about a month when the Pathfinder Beta Books were available at GenCon.

I'm not really sure how much Paizo could have changed trajectory at that point, even if the original GSL had been awesome. Which, as you note, wasn't awesome.

Cheers!
Kinak

That underscores just how late the GSL really was. It was supposed to be in place, with 3rd parties having the option to pay to gain early access, so that material could be on-hand for sale at Gen Con. Paizo waited... and waited... and nothing was coming. So they started consulting the community on their message boards about their options.

Then most publishers rejected the first GSL out of hand and it was some time after that, long after the horse had left the barn, that they finally had the current GSL... and still publishers like Necromancer rejected it despite being gung-ho cheerleaders for the latest edition of D&D. Unless the goal was to drive away most 3rd party producers, it was a total fiasco.

 

[Umbran]

FWIW, I don't think that was WotC's intentions - I'm inclined to think that's into tinfoil hat territory.

Yes. Honestly, this would have a major conspiracy theory flaw - it requires WotC to be both dumb and brilliant. It is not plausible that they could make some of the basic errors they did in marketing, but yet make a well-crafted strategy to cover their "true goal" like this. Do not ascribe to malice of forethought that which can be explained by basic inexperience.

And I think that's something we ought to accept. Licencing agreements for third parties, while common in some fields, were still pretty new territory for RPGs. They were experimenting, and nobody could have seen how it would turn out at the time. They went from no effective licencing (pre-3e) to open-door licensing (with the OGL). That's a huge shift, with many moving parts. It would be difficult for business people to really judge the impact, as so many variables are involved. Moving back to some more controlled situation would be a natural business reaction.