The Moral of the Story Is....Maybe there's such a thing as (D&D being) too big

[gamerprinter]

I never pay attention to trends, I'm an anti-trender, maybe that's why I'm so successful.

Edit: I find trends to be mostly noise, sure it has some stats to back it up, but it's general information, not specific marketable data, only good for the masses. I look at the market differently, and negotiate the hazardous terrain carefully, but always seem to find a way through, I swim around the currents of trends, and find my own way. Trends are for those who don't know what to look for in the market, and need something to latch onto - I don't need that.

 

[Minigiant]

I never pay attention to trends, I'm an anti-trender, maybe that's why I'm so successful.

And I think why the D&D clone end of the market is in turmoil.

You can't sell the same thing in the savanna as the big lion forever. You have to find your own niche and build it up.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Hello. As @overgeeked said, there have been some of us (e.g., Campbell, overgeeked, hawkeyefan, and more) discussing the potential pitfalls of having a 800 lb. gorilla dominate the market and its effects on 3pp and non-D&D games for years now.

It is true there was a pitfall with almost everyone hitching their wagon to the 800 lb gorilla-- we're seeing that pitfall now.

But we also can't deny that the only reason this is being seen as a pitfall was that hitching a wagon to the 800 lb gorilla in the first place was so darn successful. If the OGL never existed... who knows how many of these designers (either individuals or companies) would not exist right now-- with everyone needing to somehow make money only by making their own games or their own generic supplements and whatnot. The RPG design and publication scene was so much smaller prior to the OGL... because there just wasn't as much of a market for non-D&D RPGs to allow that many people to be successful (which we could define perhaps as being able to pay their bills.) The OGL and hitching to D&D allowed more people to jump in the pool-- which rose the water of that D&D pool substantially.

I think none of us would disagree that without the OGL these past 20 years and the ability to continually publish for the D&D game that the entirety of the RPG scene would be smaller right now (with every would-be designer having to go generic or not even produce at all.) I also do not doubt that due to the internet and social media that the non-D&D RPG gaming scene would be bigger right now than it is-- but with a lot less people able to make a living off of their work while within it.

So what ultimately is worse? No OGL these past 20+ years and thus a much smaller publication pool of people making money in game design (but wider in the number of games it created and served)... or with the OGL that has given people 20 years of making a living by living their dream (which they otherwise wouldn't have done?)

Yes, having the 800 lb gorilla has resulted in more people being up ship's creek without a paddle due to the potential removal of the OGL... but the only reason they are in the creek in the first place was because paddling in it was so easy and worked so well for so long.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Look at it this way... there are hundreds of thousands of people who are making a living and have a full career right now due to social media platforms-- YouTube, Twitch, TikTok etc. And 99% of these people would most likely NOT be able to make their livings right now doing this kind of stuff in this sphere if these social media platforms didn't exist. Make money playing video games all day? Not unless you were one of the few working as a QA tester.

So all these people have hitched their wagon to these social media sites, and all of them think that their ability to do so is seemingly irrevocable-- because they cannot foresee a reason why these social media outlets would stop doing what they are doing. Especially with these sites making more money hand over fist because of all these people working within their systems. All of these creators have made YouTube the 800 lb gorilla of video broadcasting, who in turn have made these creators more money they otherwise would have made outside the YouTube sphere.

But just because none of us can see a reason why YouTube might change their payment structures on money handed out to creators... doesn't mean at some point Alphabet and Google won't. And if that happens... yes, a whole bunch of YouTube people will be up ship's creek without a paddle too, just like the OGL folks are. But isn't this truly a "Let The Buyer Beware" situation? When you get into YouTube or publishing game supplements for Dungeons & Dragons (because they are both the easiest, fastest, and most successful methods for making money and having a career)... you are knowingly putting yourself into the hands of YouTube or Wizards of the Coast for your livelihood (for all the good and ill that comes with it). You've hitched your wagon to them and thus are stuck having to go along with whatever archaic decisions these companies ultimately go with... because the alternative is not hitching your wagon, but also not having a career in the first place that you ultimately might lose somewhere down the line.

 

[Aldarc]

It is true there was a pitfall with almost everyone hitching their wagon to the 800 lb gorilla-- we're seeing that pitfall now.

But we also can't deny that the only reason this is being seen as a pitfall was that hitching a wagon to the 800 lb gorilla in the first place was so darn successful. If the OGL never existed... who knows how many of these designers (either individuals or companies) would not exist right now-- with everyone needing to somehow make money only by making their own games or their own generic supplements and whatnot. The RPG design and publication scene was so much smaller prior to the OGL... because there just wasn't as much of a market for non-D&D RPGs to allow that many people to be successful (which we could define perhaps as being able to pay their bills.) The OGL and hitching to D&D allowed more people to jump in the pool-- which rose the water of that D&D pool substantially.

I think none of us would disagree that without the OGL these past 20 years and the ability to continually publish for the D&D game that the entirety of the RPG scene would be smaller right now (with every would-be designer having to go generic or not even produce at all.) I also do not doubt that due to the internet and social media that the non-D&D RPG gaming scene would be bigger right now than it is-- but with a lot less people able to make a living off of their work while within it.

So what ultimately is worse? No OGL these past 20+ years and thus a much smaller publication pool of people making money in game design (but wider in the number of games it created and served)... or with the OGL that has given people 20 years of making a living by living their dream (which they otherwise wouldn't have done?)

Yes, having the 800 lb gorilla has resulted in more people being up ship's creek without a paddle due to the potential removal of the OGL... but the only reason they are in the creek in the first place was because paddling in it was so easy and worked so well for so long.

However, I'm not sure if it was needed, and that seems to be one of the legal opinions about the OGL: i.e., mechanics can't be copyrighted.

So whose interests does the OGL actually serve? According to Ryan Dancey, the OGL served WotC's self-interest because it encouraged people to support D&D's ecosystem. Moreover, during the d20 system days of 3.X a lot of those designers couldn't pay their bills and a lot of bubbles were burst. A lot of OGL designers and publishers that made it were those that already had connections designing for D&D or WotC. There were a lot of designers in the design scene before and after the OGL, and some of its most prominent designers were designing games that didn't use the OGL at all.

It's not like an OGL was necessary for Jonathan Tweet to design Over the Edge, or Mark Rein-Hagen to design Vampire the Masquerade, Greg Stafford to design Runequest and Pendragon, or Sandy Peterson to design Call of Cthulhu, or Mike Pondsmith to design Cyberpunk, or Ron Edwards to design Sorcerer, Robin Laws to design Gumshoe, or Shane Hensley to design Savage Worlds, etc. IMHO, one of the biggest game changers with tabletop RPG design had less to do with the OGL and more the explosion of online fan communities. There were, for example, a lot of indie designers who cut their teeth not with the OGL but as a result of the Forge community: e.g., Vincent Baker, John Harper, Luke Crane, Paul Czerge, etc.

It seems like the primary designer beneficiaries of the OGL prior to 5e may have been the OSR community as they realized that they could reprint most materials from older editions while making minor tweaks to the pre-existing systems.

 

[rcade]

Or it could be similar to when a person makes it rich and finds out who their true friends are, and who just wants to hang around them for financial perks.

The best way to find out your true friends is to lose all your money.

 

[Umbran]

Folks almost seem to be talking as if, if D&D were not so dominant, we clearly would have hit some utopia of gaming, or something. That's... not really a well-supported conclusion. That fact that we are currently living through some stuff that seems sub-optimal does imply that another path would certainly have been superior.

Change is inevitable. Ultimately, the only steady state nature supports is the stasis of heat death.

 

[payn]

The best way to find out your true friends is to lose all your money.

 

[MNblockhead]

I disagree with your assessment but we aren’t supposed to talk about it here.

And yet you couldn't help yourself from injecting it into the conversation.

 

[DEFCON 1]

However, I'm not sure if it was needed, and that seems to be one of the legal opinions about the OGL: i.e., mechanics can't be copyrighted.

So whose interests does the OGL actually serve? According to Ryan Dancey, the OGL served WotC's self-interest because it encouraged people to support D&D's ecosystem. Moreover, during the d20 system days of 3.X a lot of those designers couldn't pay their bills and a lot of bubbles were burst. A lot of OGL designers and publishers that made it were those that already had connections designing for D&D or WotC. There were a lot of designers in the design scene before and after the OGL, and some of its most prominent designers were designing games that didn't use the OGL at all.

It's not like an OGL was necessary for Jonathan Tweet to design Over the Edge, or Mark Rein-Hagen to design Vampire the Masquerade, Greg Stafford to design Runequest and Pendragon, or Sandy Peterson to design Call of Cthulhu, or Mike Pondsmith to design Cyberpunk, or Ron Edwards to design Sorcerer, Robin Laws to design Gumshoe, or Shane Hensley to design Savage Worlds, etc. IMHO, one of the biggest game changers with tabletop RPG design had less to do with the OGL and more the explosion of online fan communities. There were, for example, a lot of indie designers who cut their teeth not with the OGL but as a result of the Forge community: e.g., Vincent Baker, John Harper, Luke Crane, Paul Czerge, etc.

It seems like the primary designer beneficiaries of the OGL prior to 5e may have been the OSR community as they realized that they could reprint most materials from older editions while making minor tweaks to the pre-existing systems.

Absolutely... there have been a good number of people who indeed have made product and made a living outside of the D&D and OGL sphere-- both prior to 3E and the OGL and after the release of the OGL. No arguments there.

So the real question going forward becomes... how do all these OGL D&D/d20-like game designers transition away from it (if they even try to?) Can they afford to transition to their own non-D&D SRD games? Or will this bubble burst the same way the 3E bubble did (not because of OGL removal but because of product glut?)