Do you lament the lack of third-party or fan material?

[Psion]

However, I do miss new games from publishers other than WotC. Personally, I think WotC did the entire gaming hobby and industry a disservice with the OGL, and I feel that the market has contracted as a result. It's similar to what happened in the 90s with comics (if you followed the scene), where Marvel bought up viable competitors and the actual distributors in an attempt to corner the market. What would have been a survivable contraction turned into a disaster, so much so that nowadays if a comic breaks 100k in sales it's considered a runaway success.

IMO, and I'll apologize for being so forthright about it, the industry needs far fewer companies relying upon WotC's products to sell their own. Instead, these creative people (that's not sarcasm, as I firmly believe that they are creative) should be out there making new systems and new worlds. It's a big world out there, and D&D and D20 are not for everyone.

Apologies to anyone offended by my post.

No offense taken. That said, I think you are very much wrong.

Did you game during the 90's? I did, and there was a morass of imitators and knockoffs of the big games. This was the era that brought us the term "heartbreaker". It's not like there weren't small press game publishers before the OGL came along.

But the OGL did two very important things that STRENGTHENED the hobby during its heday.

First, it made it so if you only had one or two cool concepts to bring to the table, you didn't need to--in fact, you'd be a fool to--wrap a whole game around it. It freed fledgeling publishers from the burden of doing what they might not be very good at it. And make no mistake, this did make it harder to bring a cheap little immitation game to market. But the games that came out of this process where much better as a consequence.

Second, it gave the good designers a testing ground... a place to learn skills and get a shot at exposure. Do you play 4e? I rather think its best authors (as well as some of the best authors of other games on the market nowadays) came out of this era.

If you think if you think OGL strictly weakened the hobby, I don't think you have the whole picture.

 

[Imaro]

I didn't even recall any during 2E, so I didn't use any in 3E. The only one that I'm considering using in the 4E era is the Earthdawn/Age of Legends stuff. I never got to play Earthdawn when FASA released it (everyone was either AD&D or WoD), but I always wanted to play it. So, no, I don't miss 3PP at all.

However, I do miss new games from publishers other than WotC. Personally, I think WotC did the entire gaming hobby and industry a disservice with the OGL, and I feel that the market has contracted as a result. It's similar to what happened in the 90s with comics (if you followed the scene), where Marvel bought up viable competitors and the actual distributors in an attempt to corner the market. What would have been a survivable contraction turned into a disaster, so much so that nowadays if a comic breaks 100k in sales it's considered a runaway success.

IMO, and I'll apologize for being so forthright about it, the industry needs far fewer companies relying upon WotC's products to sell their own. Instead, these creative people (that's not sarcasm, as I firmly believe that they are creative) should be out there making new systems and new worlds. It's a big world out there, and D&D and D20 are not for everyone.

Apologies to anyone offended by my post.

Huh? I just don't understand this sentiment. How was there any shortage of games outside the d20 system during the time of 3.5? This seems more the fault of people with d20 blinders on than any basis in actual truth during that time. Just a small sampling off the top of my head...

Runequest
nWoD
Scion
Exalted
Eden Studios Cinematic unisystem and Classic Unisystem
Savage Wolds
Cortex system
PDQ system
Qin the Warring States
BRP
Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard/etc.
Warhammer FRPG/WH40K
Spirit of the Century
Reign
API
Anima: Beyond Fantasy
Weapons of the Gods
and so on...

Honestly, no snark intended, perhaps you just weren't looking very hard for games outside the d20 mold.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Honestly, no snark intended, perhaps you just weren't looking very hard for games outside the d20 mold.

Sometimes perception becomes reality.

"Huh, there is other stuff outside of d20? But I have all this d20 OGL stuff to run through first!"

Personally I am not sure how to feel about that. On one hand, I like innovative, new systems. On the other hand, I am not sure I would find use to them, or that many of them are actually good. And to figure out if a game is really good you need to play it. If you don't even get there, it seems a waste of money.
Sometimes it would be nice to have stuff you can just "plug in" to your system to add something interesting that fits a theme you have in mind. Though I wonder if anything like that really existed in the OGL days.


Regarding 4E support. I do not think I need more. Maybe I do need different stuff? Adventurers with deeper plots and shorter dungeons perhaps? Though - it's not me that needs that. It's my other DMs. Just to ensure that the 4E campaigns keep running or, once coming to their end, are replaced with new 4E campaigns.

 

[Psion]

(...)

 

[Psion]

Sometimes perception becomes reality.

Obviously...

 

[Henry]

Huh? I just don't understand this sentiment. How was there any shortage of games outside the d20 system during the time of 3.5? This seems more the fault of people with d20 blinders on than any basis in actual truth during that time. Just a small sampling off the top of my head...

Runequest
nWoD
Scion
Exalted
Eden Studios Cinematic unisystem and Classic Unisystem
Savage Wolds
Cortex system
PDQ system
Qin the Warring States
BRP
Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard/etc.
Warhammer FRPG/WH40K
Spirit of the Century
Reign
API
Anima: Beyond Fantasy
Weapons of the Gods
and so on...

Honestly, no snark intended, perhaps you just weren't looking very hard for games outside the d20 mold.

I'll give an even more shocking suggestion: several of those new games the OGL was directly or indirectly responsible for.

• Warhammer FRPG 2nd edition came from Green Ronin as a design house; several d20 style mechanics made it into the book, influenced by its authors familairity with both warhammer and d20.
• Runequest when it was re-released was added to the OGL to encourage usage
• FATE, and FUDGE, is released under the OGL. According to the Wiki page, this actually eased some people's concerns over the "openness" of the license FUDGE was originally released under.
• OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, and a host of other "retro" games would not have seen the light of day had it not been for the OGL. According to Stewart Marshall, OSRIC for instance "could not have been done," from a quote of a post from a few years back.

More importantly, If not for the OGL, ENWorld would not be anywhere near as large a site as it was and is; and as Psion mentioned, 4E I don't think would exist as it is without the OGL nor the influence of indie press games; it fed from both sources, thanks to the inimitable Mike Mearls.

In summary, the OGL had a lot of influences, but "strictly detrimental" isn't the truth, IMO.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have very little interest in 3PP, though I do occsasionally take looks. Thus far, in my life I have bought two necromancer modules 3pp and that is it.

A few reasons:

I live in Japan, and these are not in stores, and rarely on Amazon Japan.

I do not really take time to search out these kinds of publishers or their products

I usually make my own adventures

I have serious quality concerns. Yes, people crow about procduct after prioduct on the iInternet, but I have serious quality concerns about them, too.

 

[thewok]

I never used a lot of 3rd-party stuff in my gaming. I just never really found the need. The one exception was when I played a cleric of the goddess of love in my friend's campaign world, and I wanted to find a Love Domain, which WotC never seemed to publish. In that case, I picked up a 3rd-party book called "Divine Spellbook" or something similar.

This is not to say, however, that I am against 3rd-party materials, of course. I just never found the need for them. I was happy with what little I was able to afford published by WotC.