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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord_Blacksteel" data-source="post: 8950857" data-attributes="member: 53082">I can argue with the initial premise for the OP: D&D 2E launched in 1989 and it was huge so D&D hardly went dormant during this time. By the mid-90's and the Players Options books, sure, but the early 90's - no. D&D was still the big dog and though VtM made a lot of inroads it never became the institution that D&D was. That said there was a lot of creativity throughout the 80's even before this with even TSR putting out non-D&D based rules with Star Frontiers and Marvel Super Heroes being two of them. We had a Star Trek RPG, a Star Wars RPG, DC Heroes, Champions and the other Hero System games, GURPS, Twilight 2000, Warhammer Fantasy, Shadowrun, Battletech/Mechwarrior - all of these and many more launched and were popular enough to run for years, typically with multiple editions too.When WOTC initially released the OGL it generated a bunch of d20 based games and supplements that were mainly aimed at D&D players with Mutants and Masterminds being the most divergent of the bunch I would say. It pushed some bounded creativity but it mainly seemed to pull things towards the center (D&D) because people figured they could make money with it.I think that's the biggest difference between the 80's/90's and the last 20 years - in those days people put out the game they wanted to make even if it differed radically from D&D. Since the OGL a lot of people have had the idea they can make money from their hobby if they "attach" to D&D and plug into the network effect etc. - some did, and some did not. However, I do think it pulled a lot of effort towards D&D instead of some other system and setting.So do I think a new open license for D&D today is going to spur some new wave of new non-D&D games? Probably not. Yes, people were angry at WOTC and many still are, but in addition to the 5E CC option the other D&D-adjacent companies like KP and Paizo are putting out other open licenses which are still tied to D&D type games. You don't need a license to publish your own game - you need a license to publish for someone else's game. Plus look at what else is out there even with the popularity of 5E: PbtA has been mentioned, Modiphius has gone nuts with games for their 2D20 system, Savage Worlds is probably more popular than it ever has been, GURPS and Hero are still around in some form, and FATE and Cortex are still out there making new games as well. There is no lack of options system-wise. I don't think we will see a huge spike for these but I'm sure they've been getting some attention they might not have received otherwise. So no, I think while the outrage will cause some people to look at other options to play, I think a shiny new open license specifically covering 5E (and new ones for some D&D-type games like Pathfinder) means the people publishing stuff will move even closer to D&D, especially if that's already their bread & butter.</blockquote>

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