Gygax's views on OGL
- Thread starter MeepoTheMighty
- Start date
No, he's far from being out of touch. You have to consider that Gary and WotC are coming from two totally different points of view. The d20 STL is based on the belief that the most "popular" RPG is the best RPG. From reading his replies to those questions, its not much of an assumption to gather that Gary believes that the best game would have the best quality rules and supplements and be easy to introduce to new gamers. WotC put a plan into action to sell more PHBs and let other people produce what they will. As far as the OGL/D20 is concerned, there are no other provisions--nothing about attracting new players, nothing about improving D&D, nothing about quality (although there are some standards now)--nothing except selling more PHBs and increasing D&D's "popularity".
Frankly, some of the questions are just plain loaded. How could products produced under the OGL improve D&D? (I'm assuming that "improve" means to somehow "make the rules better.") Nothing produced by a party using the d20/OGL is "official", so the core rule books remain unchanged. (What happens at the individual gaming table being up to the participants.) How could the OGL attract new players? Unless a 3rd party put out an introductory set, which couldn't be d20 and stand alone at the same time so it would have to be OGL and then the connection with D&D would be lost because the d20 trademark couldn't be used.
I don't think Gary's out of touch, so much as the questions don't make any sense.
Frankly, some of the questions are just plain loaded. How could products produced under the OGL improve D&D? (I'm assuming that "improve" means to somehow "make the rules better.") Nothing produced by a party using the d20/OGL is "official", so the core rule books remain unchanged. (What happens at the individual gaming table being up to the participants.) How could the OGL attract new players? Unless a 3rd party put out an introductory set, which couldn't be d20 and stand alone at the same time so it would have to be OGL and then the connection with D&D would be lost because the d20 trademark couldn't be used.
I don't think Gary's out of touch, so much as the questions don't make any sense.
rgard
Adventurer
Walter_J said:
I gave one example of OGL bringing new blood to the industry as well as a couple of other folks' posts.
OGL not improving the system? Probably has already. The folks at WotC don't live in a vacuum. I'd bet that some of the .5 upgrade and some from Unearthed Arcana at least had some inspiration from something published by 3rd party companies.
Thanks,
Rich
Ottergame
First Post
When 3rd edition was released, tons of PHBs were sold. Now, those books had to go somewhere, and returning vets couldn't account for the whole number. People were buying books to give as gifts to non-gaming friends, and brought them into the fold.
OGL has at least done something to keep those people playing, if not directly pulling them into the hobby, because someone, somewhere, has wrote the book you want to play with. In the bad old fashioned days, you just had to hope and pray you'd get a useful nugget from an issue of Dragon if what you wanted was uncommon and never done before.
OGL has at least done something to keep those people playing, if not directly pulling them into the hobby, because someone, somewhere, has wrote the book you want to play with. In the bad old fashioned days, you just had to hope and pray you'd get a useful nugget from an issue of Dragon if what you wanted was uncommon and never done before.
BiggusGeekus
That's Latin for "cool"
rgard said:
I'm glad to hear your brother is enjoying the hobby, but again, ten years ago you'd just have a John Carter game, possibly with a Tarzan and Hollow Earth spinoff, all of which would not be based on d20. There were a bazillion and five such games in the 80s.
I'm sure the similarity of game mechanics made the transition to playing other settings easier and more fun. But, with all due respect, this is not an OGL thing.
Sir Whiskers
First Post
rgard said:
But by the same token, does anyone else see a relationship between the (IMO) declining quality of Dragon articles and the advent of OGL? I have a couple friends who have come up with some really good material for d20, but they refuse to send it to Dragon - instead they formed their own d20 company and publish under their own name. And I doubt they're the only ones.
When Dragon was one of the only venues for publishing D&D material, it could choose from the very best (and worst). Now I suspect it too often gets the leftovers. A shame really.
Ranger REG
Explorer
Nope, he's not out of touch. He is like many publishers who view Open Gaming as either a threat or a bad move for the RPG industry. But such opposition does have merit by pointing out the faults of Open Gaming.MeepoTheMighty said:
The main one being the lack of quality control. While it gives aspiring designers to make product for open game rulesets, the original creators of the ruleset cannot review and approve if the game itself would work well with the core ruleset seamlessly. The end result: The majority of d20 products in the market currently of are mediocre quality. Sorry, I won't list the names of the publishers. They know who they are and I like to believe that they will learn quickly (or the hard way) and their game-publishing performance will improve exponentially with regards to the open game rulesets. I have high hope that they will self-enforce the same if not better quality control of their products as WotC.
Personally, I think it's time the majority of the publishers in the d20 network take the time to review their products as well as other products and pick which mechanics is most likely to be reused and go from there, in an effort to solidify the d20 System. Personally, I think the saturation period is overdue.
Ottergame
First Post
The OGL is like any free market in real life, a slew of junk and crap hits the streets, and those companies are weeded out while the good ones remain.
I don't care if there are a million bad books out there for d20.. I am perfectly capable of reading reviews and examing books first to only buy those good books, and the ones that appeal to me.
I don't care if there are a million bad books out there for d20.. I am perfectly capable of reading reviews and examing books first to only buy those good books, and the ones that appeal to me.
