Gygax's views on OGL

[Tav_Behemoth]

The older I get, the more I respect Gary and his remarkable achievements. Few people have had such a revolutionary impact on my life and the world we all live in. But one nice thing about getting older is learning that you can love your elders and still disagree with them...

As we were fooling around with cover design ideas for Masters and Minions, one of the things I considered was an homage to the 1980 World of Greyhawk folio, both because it's a thing of beauty and because it's a 32-page book like our Horde Books--I'm not yet ambitious enough to even think of creating a jam-packed tome like the '79 DMG!

As I sketched out my tribute version of its cover, it gave me an incredible feeling of liberation to say "copyleft" everywhere the original says "copyright", and "all rights released" everywhere it says "all rights reserved". (There's a nice variant of this on a Guided by Voices album: "All wrongs reversed.") Now, that was published then, and we're dealing with an entirely different landscape now. We're not doing that version of the cover, nor is Behemoth3 actually giving up every moral right to our creation. But it was nice to feel that spirit of freedom for a moment!

I think that the Open Gaming License's contribution of the D&D ruleset to the community will ultimately be seen as having a transformative impact on gaming that's almost as great as the creation of the original roleplaying game. We've got enough to thank Gary for already; if he doesn't want to wave flags for the current revolution, I reckon he's earned that right!

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

The OGL does indeed do nothing to bring new players into the game.

Really? I'm sure there are people playing Mutants & Masterminds, Farscape, Babylon 5, or whatever, who wouldn't have ever picked up a D&D book.

 

[Planesdragon]

* Open licenses have been a benefit for consumers in the software field, and I think this is more fact than opinion.

No, it's a fact. Open Licenses are why the internet happened at all. Open standards are why we can actually read this website. The question isn't "are open licenses good", it's "when are closed licenses better?"

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Really? I'm sure there are people playing Mutants & Masterminds, Farscape, Babylon 5, or whatever, who wouldn't have ever picked up a D&D book.

All of those would have still been made. Well, M&M might be more dubious, but there were puh-lenty of games non-d20 based that were being made, Star Trek and Star Wars being two big examples (the latter going to d20 when West End Games fell into trouble).

Now, what the OGL does do is encourage producers to publish with d20-friendly rules which lowers the learning curve for new games. But that's not really bringing in new players, it's making things easier for gamers to try new settings.

 

[DanMcS]

Dueling quotes

Frankly, the D20 and OGL licenses are what they are, and in my opinion they have no real benefit to WotC, and thus they do not benefit the D&D game system. The concept is flawed, and I do not believe that any amount of time will serve to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear.

Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished, but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

 

[Desdichado]

I suspect that the estimable Col. Pladoh also tends to think of the gaming industry in regards to how it serves the gamer, rather than whether or not any given company makes or loses money. He may believe (and I think it's valid idea) that different, competing game systems = more better game. Instead of having twenty tiny companies doing d20, it would be better to have six strong companies doing six different-but-really-cool games, each one working twice as hard to earn your gaming dollar.

If indeed Col_Pladoh thinks of the industry in regards to how it serves the gamer, then the argument is completely off base. The OGL, especially now, a few years after its advent and the shaking out of the poorest products, is the most gamer-geared it's ever been. Want a monster book? Well, you can go get the MM, the MM2 or the FF, of course, but you can also go get oriental themed monsters with Jade Dragons and Hungry Ghosts or Creatures of Rokugan, for instance. Or more traditional faery tale type creatures in the Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary. You want to focus on the lower planes? Book of Fiends fills that niche. You want monsters geared for specific settings? Tons of those out there too.

This example shows that the consumer has much more choice in quality material than he ever would have had prior to the OGL. Are there some clunker monster books out there? Sure, but that's not the point. The point is, there are more quality monster books, in print and compatible with a single system, then we've ever had before by far.

Extrapolating beyond the rather constricted example of monster books, I'd say this is true for every type of book you can imagine for a game from toolboxes, to settings, to class splatbooks, etc.

Col_Pladoh clearly does not focus on "the gaming industry in regards to how it serves the gamer" if this is his position on the OGL. In fact, I have a hard time wondering what his gripe with the OGL really is, other than the fact that he's clearly got different ideas in terms of what the value of the D&D brand is and how to develop that, and that he wonders (and is dubious about) if the financial payback from the OGL ever materialized. That's reasonable, although he doesn't have any data to support his position either, so it's just a question of opinion.

 

[Sigurd]

Timing is decisive here

Both Gygax & WOTC used an approach appropriate for their time.

Gygax grew a small idea into an industry. Shaping and controlling that Idea was a) managable and b) gave him steady work. He likes to write and play so TSR as an extension of his writing makes sense.


Wotc bought a game publishing company. I've heard, and I don't know it to be true, that at the time it wasn't a very profitable gaming company. OGL is a shrewd move for directors of a company who must split their interests. If you are not producing a great module for your game right now -- enable somebody else to and keep the game running.

I also have to say that OGL does bring in new gamers to WOTC. The OGL poached all the hard core games from other systems that had an itch to publish something. The bookstore near me has three roleplaying shelves - 1.3 shelves are WOTC, 1 shelf is OGL support material and the remaining .7 of a shelf has everything else. OGL is not a dungeon masters aid it is a publishing strategy.

sigurd

 

[MerakSpielman]

The OGL does perhaps allow hordes of barely-literate power gamers to publish their own, poorly thought out drek, but it also has allowed a good number of gems to be published which would otherwise never have seen the light of day, like Elements of Magic, or some of the other small-publisher pdfs, like "Everyone Else" which I use all the time.

 

[mattcolville]

First, remember that someone asked Gary his opinion. Gary gave it. We're not obligated to agree with him and we benefit from not lambasting someone for holding an opinion different from our own.

I suspect that the estimable Col. Pladoh also tends to think of the gaming industry in regards to how it serves the gamer, rather than whether or not any given company makes or loses money.

In this, I wonder if he's consider the fact that with the advent of the OGL WotC no longer controls D&D. The license is free, and in perpetuity. It cannot be withdrawn. WotC gave away one of their greatest assets, and if they start ing up D&D, other people can pick up the slack. There's now no reason the things that happened to TSR in the 90's should happen again.

 

[Sargon]

I think the OGL is sort of a double edged sword for WOTC

It is good that there are a ton of products out there. I believe it is reaching 1500 or more different ones. It is true that I can go online and order basically the exact book that suits my interest. However, I am a regular lurker sometimes poster on d20 and other various rpg boards. So I know what products are coming out.

Here is where the problem as far as me as a customer goes. I bought 3.5 Monster Manual, 3.5 DMG. That is it as far as WOTC products in the last year are concerned. My 3.5 Players handbook is from mongoose. The rest of my books are all from 3rd party publishers. I have no plans as far as I see to buy another WOTC product, all my money is going to 3rd party companies. This works out to basically WOTC got 60 of my gaming dollars.

I have recently just bought

Book of Fiends
Every Midnight product out
Every Dawnforge product out
Advanced Players Guide

Supposedly 3.5 came out 2 years early, due to sales of 3.0 core books sales slowing down. How long will it take for 3.5 core books sales to also slow down.

To play D&D all you need to have is the 3 core books, 2 if you buy mongooses PHB. You could spend the rest of your money buying various 3rd party products. Recently Complete Divine and Complete Warrior has come out, bet you might find a better 3rd party product that does it better. Racial Books, yep covered as well, probably in more depth.

I am waiting for some product like this to come out. I recently got into the midnight campaign setting. Now technically I could take the elements of the SRD, and the open content of the Midnight campaign setting, compile all the classes, races, spells, feats, skills, etc... into one book, format it so it looks better, and sell it as an ogl product. Now you can buy one book and it will have everything you need to run Midnight without the need to buy WOTC core books. Basically this would be a more advanced version of Monte Cooks Arcana Unearthed since it would serve as PHB, DMG and Monster Manual.

I basically believe that the OGL is better for players of the game, but not that great for WOTC. Currently there is more D20 licensed rpg products than OGL but that might change.