We All Won – The OGL Three Years Later

[Corinnguard]

I could easily see people playing D&D5e and borrowing parts of A5E...

I think that is the intent. Let the players get interested enough to borrow elements from A5e for their 5e games. While some players will stick with 5e, others will Level Up.

I also don't know if in later books A5E moved away from the OGL, looking at Morrus's comments, I seriously doubt it.

A5e's SRD was published under the Creative Commons, the Open Game License and the Open RPG Creator.

 

[WitchyD]

Even with WotC moving the 5e SRDs to a CC-BY 4.0 license, I don't think that undoes the harm done by WotC. Any time a hobbyist or independent designer who wants to do their own remix on F20 games but doesn't because they are afraid of screwing up the licensing between multiple, maybe incompatible licenses, it's a loss to the scene.

On a personal level, I won't call it a win on the licensing front until WotC releases a D&D4e SRD under the OGL and/or CC-BY 4.0 license. I'm one of the sickos who prefer 4e over other editions, and even today there isn't a game that does it quite like 4e did. I'd love to see more overtly 4e-derived games out there.

 

[CommodoreKong]

On a personal level, I won't call it a win on the licensing front until WotC releases a D&D4e SRD under the OGL and/or CC-BY 4.0 license. I'm one of the sickos who prefer 4e over other editions, and even today there isn't a game that does it quite like 4e did. I'd love to see more overtly 4e-derived games out there.

Have you tried Draw Steel yet? I haven’t personally played 4e but from what I understand it’s a bit of a spiritual successor and I can personally say from the running The Delian Tomb it’s a really well designed RPG.

 

[WitchyD]

Have you tried Draw Steel yet? I haven’t personally played 4e but from what I understand it’s a bit of a spiritual successor and I can personally say from the running The Delian Tomb it’s a really well designed RPG.

Not yet, no. I am aware that Draw Steel does things fairly differently from 4e, such as dropping binary to-hit rolls in favor of a tiers-of-success check.

I'm presently running 13th Age 2e, which also doesn't do it quite like 4e did, but does work better for a shorter two-hour timeslot that I'm stuck with for now, as well as being a bit more newbie-friendly.

I'm still holding out a bit of hope that a 4e SRD will end up licensed under the CC-BY 4.0 and we'll see some hobbyist or indie designers do their PF1e- or TotV-style remix of 4e. I'm aware of the Orcus retroclone, which comes closer to 4e than either of the others mentioned but did ancestries and classes differently enough that I wouldn't call it a strict retroclone. (It's still a very impressive bit of work!)

A CC or OGL licensed 4e SRD would also allow for better community support in the form of VTT modules or character builders that aren't on shaky legal ground or outright piracy.