Gygax's views on OGL

[Scutisorex]

I agree with Gygax on many things, but not this one. I think that, in a perfect world, the D&D brand could be controlled and supported by the same company and put out just enough quality product to give good support but not flood the market. However, that is not the world in which we live, nor was it the reality back when I started gaming in 1991. The D&D brand HAD to make a change... there had to be some significant change in order for it to prosper. In my opinion, OGL was the single most important advancement to occur in the gaming industry in decades.

 

[sjmiller]

Who here's equates a "d20 System" product with "D&D"? I see those products as being "compatible with D&D", but that's a long way from being "D&D". When I see a D&D product, I expect a certain standard of product that I do not expect from a normal d20 System product.

That would be me raising my hand. Generally, when I see D20 I think "D&D or D&D variant". Why? Because generally in my observations that is the case. I often times see a D20 product and think "how did they modify D&D for this one?"

I am sure there are folks out there who will gladly point out to me the differences between their favorite D20 System game and D&D. The differences are often micro-system differences rather than macro-system differences.

Unlike you, I do not expect a certain product standard from WotC that is any better or worse than from someone else. It's not that either of us is wrong, it's just that we have different viewpoints on the subject.

I for one like having different game systems for different styles of games. I do not find D20 to be my system of choice for SF games or Modern Espionage games. By the same token I don't find Classic Traveller to be my system of choice for fantasy games.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Look, I AGREE with Gygax. He isn't saying that the OGL is destroying D&D. All he said is that he doesn't think it is a good idea to allow people to write books for your game without any control on what they put out because people could associate their book with your game.

I agree with him. I like D&D to be a UNIFIED game. I like to know that the game mechanics make sense and are internally consistant. I'd like to think that someone who likely has read through all the other D&D books and who has a good sense of the D&D vision has at least looked at the book before it got printed. D&D does have its own sense of what fits and what doesn't along with a game balance that (for the most part) it stays pretty close to.

I can't count the number of times that I've talked to gamers at a convention or at my local gaming store or even people who join my group who tell me stories about characters who were this race that gave pluses to all their stats for no level adjustment, who took feats from 3 different publishers D20 system books that let them add their strength, dex, and con to their damage, and their AC, and had a 2-20 crit range (ok, it's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's pretty bad)

With no control over what gets put out, gamers everywhere are integrating D20 system products into their games, and D&D isn't one game anymore, it is now 30 or 40 games that play completely different depending on which D20 system books you are playing with. I like being able to sit down at a table and make a character without having to spend the next 2 or 3 hours listening to the DM tell me all the rules he is adding to the game from D20 system books.

I'll admit one thing, that the OGL HAS made more people play, but that's because they aren't actually playing D&D. I'm with Gygax, if you are playing with house rules, you may be playing a game, but it isn't D&D. Same thing with 3rd party OGL products. Don't get me wrong, some of them may even be BETTER games than D&D, but they aren't D&D. Each person is able to turn D&D into the game they'd actually LIKE to play, so they buy the core books, so they have a basis to begin with. Which does make WOTC more money. However, the problem with that is...I LIKE D&D. It's fustrating when I create a D&D character for a game and I'm told by the DM that it isn't legal.

I, for one, wish that it was the "default" to use the rules as written, without any extra OGL books to confuse things.

 

[The Tsar To Owls]

Iconoclasm & Heresy

i am tired of this Canonization of Gygax.

He helped to create and foster a great thing, but that does not make everything that comes out of his mouth golden, by any stretch of the imagination (except his). A pillar of the game and it's origin, yes, but much like Ozzy, Gygax's strength and draw is in what he was, not what he is today.

If you want a tru opinion of the OGL, you need to look to the current generation of spearheaders like (the overly prolific) Monte Cook, or, beter yet, folk who actually have a career stake in it like Green Ronin, Mongoose, Fantasy Flight, S&S, and the like.

The OGL has not affected him one whit, as his residuals keep him happily floating along, not to mention the fact that a transcription of his farts could be bound and sold on his name alone to hundreds of doe-eyed gamers who might stare down a room ful of vampires and dragons, but go all grovelly at the mention of the name "Gygax".

Thank you Gary. Next.

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

I find it hard to believe that the OGL could potentially "kill" WotC. Especially since WotC's largest profit center has always been CCGs -- the purchase of D&D was merely a passion of Peter Adkinson, not an acquisition that was supposed to make or break the company. If anything's going to "kill" WotC it would be their over-reliance on CCGs to make most of their money, and inability to branch out when that market has shrunk substantially.

Well, okay, I overstated the matter ^_^

Let me rephrase: if it turns out to be a bad profit decision, it won't happen again. It won't kill WotC, but it may kill the D&D division.

 

[rogueattorney]

I see a lot of knee-jerk "Gygax is old and stupid" reactions, but not a whole lot of analysis of what the man actually said. His main points were:

1. WotC's admission of being unable to produce profitable adventures is a cop-out. Certainly, Necro, Goodman, and other companies that make their living on making modules proves this.

2. He doesn't like the lack of quality control with the OGL, and saw the recent imposition decency standards as a good thing. He quite simply would rather have quality over quanity and sees no advantage to a flood of mediocre products on the market.

3. The OGL is nice for veteran gamers, but doesn't do much for beginners. Which, I'd guess, WotC is starting to agree with, given the impending release of the new Basic set.

What's the big deal?

R.A.

 

[trollwad]

I see a lot of knee-jerk "Gygax is old and stupid" reactions, but not a whole lot of analysis of what the man actually said. His main points were:

1. WotC's admission of being unable to produce profitable adventures is a cop-out. Certainly, Necro, Goodman, and other companies that make their living on making modules proves this.

2. He doesn't like the lack of quality control with the OGL, and saw the recent imposition decency standards as a good thing. He quite simply would rather have quality over quanity and sees no advantage to a flood of mediocre products on the market.

3. The OGL is nice for veteran gamers, but doesn't do much for beginners. Which, I'd guess, WotC is starting to agree with, given the impending release of the new Basic set.

What's the big deal?

R.A.

AMEN! It is amazing how much people love to go off on a rant about something that they dont even seem to read/refer to. No one said Gygax is god or anything else but it seems wise to me to at least carefully consider what someone with more gaming credits than anyone I can think of, has to say on a given subject.

Just to give people on this list some context (Ive read a lot of gygax interviews over the years):

1) modules are a thinner margin business. By all accounts, the present TSR/WOTC/whatever is a high overhead business as currently constituted. companies are often tempted to cede lower margin business to competitors (detroit ceding small autos to the japanese is one infamous example) rather than reorienting people/salaries etc to compete on the "low end." Decide for yourself.

2) centralized quality control does seem important to me. even linux, the ultimate decentralized build your own system, has linus torvalds and others sitting at the center and deciding which system tweaks will be incorporated in the next version of linux.

3) OGL helping veterans vs. enticing new gamers is important to gygax. Other interviews show that he believes that young potential gamers are spending more time with videogames than with roleplaying with humans. even when they do come to roleplaying they often come at the game from a videogaming mentality. Gygax has implied that he believes that wotc should make more effort to entice new gamers and also to create roleplaying oriented video gaming product.

Decide for yourself the pros and cons of these matters (I think there is some merit to his case, though he probably overstates it somewhat) but at least read what he is saying carefully. His few advocates on this board never said that mssr. gygax was an infallible oracle so anyone who is fighting against that is tilting against a straw man.

 

[Desdichado]

With no control over what gets put out, gamers everywhere are integrating D20 system products into their games, and D&D isn't one game anymore, it is now 30 or 40 games that play completely different depending on which D20 system books you are playing with. I like being able to sit down at a table and make a character without having to spend the next 2 or 3 hours listening to the DM tell me all the rules he is adding to the game from D20 system books.

How is that bad? And although it'd be difficult to scope it, how is that different really from the way it used to be when D&D was almost unplayable, and everyone had houserules? I don't think you're going to get very far with that argument.

I'll admit one thing, that the OGL HAS made more people play, but that's because they aren't actually playing D&D. I'm with Gygax, if you are playing with house rules, you may be playing a game, but it isn't D&D. Same thing with 3rd party OGL products. Don't get me wrong, some of them may even be BETTER games than D&D, but they aren't D&D. Each person is able to turn D&D into the game they'd actually LIKE to play, so they buy the core books, so they have a basis to begin with. Which does make WOTC more money. However, the problem with that is...I LIKE D&D. It's fustrating when I create a D&D character for a game and I'm told by the DM that it isn't legal.

I'm not sure what you're point is, other than that you wish other people didn't play games that aren't D&D. Since I wouldn't be playing d20 at all if D&D was the only way I could play it (not being involved in a D&D game at the moment, and not really interested in one either, for that matter) then we are clearly at opposite ends of the spectrum. I can only conclude that what you mean by all this is that, and you'll forgive me if this comes across as putting words in your mouth, "I don't like the OGL because it makes it more likely that I'll end up in games that aren't the games I want to play." You could otherwise make the argument that these same people would either be playing some other non-d20 game, or not even gaming at all, and you wouldn't be in a game at all, but that's speculative. Whichever way you go, though, I find your position to be absolutely mind-boggling.

I, for one, wish that it was the "default" to use the rules as written, without any extra OGL books to confuse things.

Isn't it already?

 

[PJ-Mason]

Unlike you, I do not expect a certain product standard from WotC that is any better or worse than from someone else. It's not that either of us is wrong, it's just that we have different viewpoints on the subject.

I for one like having different game systems for different styles of games. I do not find D20 to be my system of choice for SF games or Modern Espionage games. By the same token I don't find Classic Traveller to be my system of choice for fantasy games.

Not to mention that a lot of the people who started up a D20 company and who write for them are ex-Wotc employees. Or at least established game designer/writers. Thats why i don't hold WOTC material over anyone elses. Some of the people who wrote 3E are the same guys who write non-wotc D20 material (monte cook, etc).

I have my favorite systems (DC Heroes, cyberpunk, warhammer, D20, etc) but i won't discount a D20 sci fi game or cyberpunkish d20 out of hand, because of not wanting my games to look alike. Since Mutants & Masterminds, i have realized that it IS possible for D20 to branch out into other genres and get it done right. Since i am a DC Heroes freak, it sorta hurts to say there is another supers game thats as good as it is, but M&M is. The same goes for Sci Fi, horror, Spy, westerns, or what have you. It just remains for someone to get it done in D20.

 

[Dogbrain]

Gary Gygax: The man in charge when "TSR" stood for "They Sue, Regardless of any actual intellectual property infringement, They Sue, Regardless."

This is the same guy who wrote "Sorcerer's Scroll" columns about how anybody who wasn't playing AD&D according to the "official" rules wasn't playing "real" AD&D.