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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jsaving" data-source="post: 6295203" data-attributes="member: 16726">If your premise were right, it would be a mystery indeed.  But I'm not so sure it's right.By fostering the development of a vibrant third-party marketplace for adventures and other tertiary products, WotC reaped increased sales of its core rulebooks, driving revenue above where it would have been without an OGL.  The reason is that a vastly expanded universe of low-margin adventure products create demand for the core books, which provide the bulk of WotC's D&D-related profits.  Further driving 3e sales was the protection against forced obsolescence that 3e rulebook purchasers enjoyed under the OGL, because anybody who was on the fence about purchasing the core books knew and understood that their edition would continue to receive third-party support in the event a substandard new edition was eventually foisted upon them.You speak of these things as inexplicable mistakes when in fact they were integral to D&D's remarkable success in the early to mid 2000s.  And while you are right that the OGL contributed to the fracturing of the gaming community today, the OGL did not itself create the fracture -- that was done through the creation of an edition most gamers didn't prefer to what had come before, and exacerbated by discouraging a a third-party adventure market that would have driven up demand for the 4e core books in the same way it did for 3e's core books.  All the OGL did was fulfill its design imperative of ensuring gamers would be protected in precisely this circumstance, and vindicated the many gamers who bought 3e's core books precisely because of this guarantee.  Is it regrettable that so many people have felt the need to "redeem" the guarantee?  Yes, but blaming the OGL for this points fingers in the wrong direction and obscures the good a robust OGL could do for 5e...</blockquote>

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