Gygax's views on OGL

[marketingman]

It also stood for Totally Spineless Rehashers, Imagine that you have caught lightening in a bottle with a hot new game that takes the country by storm spawning a new industry, Do you stand back an allow other to profit from your risk? If you stay in business no, if you want to be nice you will get sscrewed by others..

Time for some more coco.

 

[MDSnowman]

I've been playing D&D since I was eight years old... and until many years later I was ignorant of a lot of the history behind the game. Now that I know I'm inclined to say.. it is just that, history.

I've never been one to diefy anyone... and if often makes me come across as uncaring, but I'm of the opinion that Gary's perspective is slightly skewed.

Instead of posting a lengthy point by point argument I just want to put my two copper pieces into the discussion.

I love D20 and OGL to death, but I think that WotC have shot themselves in the foot with how they've approached it. They're taking sole responsiblity for the basic things, players handbooks, DMGs, Monster Manuels, and all premutations of such. Unfortunatly they've boxed themselves into just selling that stuff, when 3.0 came out they updated old material and I flocked to buy it without thinking. Now a few years go by and they release 3.5.... I felt a little slighted... did this mean I'd have to buy a new fiend folio? a new Book of Vile Darkness? A New Psionics Handbook? But still I bought my 3.5 books like a good boy and then I bought the complete warrior and it struck me... all WotC seem to be doing is rehashing their old ideas over and over again and dressing it up with fancy production costs and full color art few other companies can't afford and leaning back on the fallicy that just because WotC is "official" it is inherently better than 3rd party work... heck check the thread about different "flavors" of D&D core books... WotC will not stop until they've beaten the horse dead.

That's why the release of Unearthed Arcana, Dragonomicon and now Eberron are causing such a stir, these three books represent the first attempts for WotC to expand beyond what they know is safe. I applaud these efforts and consquently these are the only WotC books (well the jury is still out till I actually get and read Eberron) I haven't regretted buying in the longest time.

The books I enjoy and I am moved by are all by third party publishers. Scarred lands presents me with a standard fantasy realm turned on it's ear by an earth shattering event, or Ravenloft... which WotC sold the rights to (much to their chargrin) has finally finished the ressurection it was trying to achieve for years and now the setting is finally expanding into new horizons, and Green Ronin, in my opinion one of the best d20 publishers bar none. Producing not only great d20 supplements, but also creating Mutants and Masterminds, showing just how flexible d20 can be. All of these are great books and products I would have never seen if d20 didn't exist. If Mr.Gygax wants to deprieve me of that then I'll disregard his opinion all together.

WotC will be lucky if I buy three books from them in a year...
Since January I've bought more than double that many from at least two third party publishers.

Will just publishing Core books and the like hurt WotC? no, in fact it will keep them around for a long time...but if they stagnate they may wake up one morning to realize that another company, maybe White Wolf, maybe Green Ronin, hell maybe some company starting today, may be doing D&D better than they do. The OGL is a challenge for WotC to take risks, and I hope the success of books dedicated to one kind of monster, or optional rules shows them that those risks are worth making.

...I just realized I may have given you two silver worth.

 

[sjmiller]

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.

I hear people constantly mention this, but can someone tell me when he said something even close to this? I have the Dragon Archive, so it be nice to see some back up on this.

 

[JeffB]

from the way it used to be when D&D was almost unplayable, and everyone had houserules?

I'm sorry JR but I have to laugh everytime I hear something like this. Me and my buddies had a damn good time playing that "almost unplayable" game for several years..what were we thinking?

 

[tarchon]

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.

The problem is that high quality and low volume and low price are not simultaneously achievable with profitability. This is why most niche RPG stuff is really...er... poorly edited, let's say. WotC has, not unreasonably, decided that they would rather not risk their brand making the compromises and taking the risks that would be necessary to chase after nickels and dimes, particularly when other people are willing and able to do it. It's simple economics. "High-quality" requires high resource expenditure. That's just a simple fact of life. One thing I've long come to recognize about WotC is that they're pretty sharp on the business end (or at least they used to be). Let's not forget that TSR went down in flames, while WotC was a fantastic financial success and still is doing pretty well, so there's obviously some practical basis for thinking the WotC way has something going for it.

 

[rogueattorney]

Let's not forget that TSR went down in flames...

Let's also not forget that TSR was doing quite well up to 1983, when G.G. was forced out as creative head, briefly rebounded when he took back control in 1985, and then went into it's protracted death spiral AFTER he was removed from the company in 1987. Resting the sins of 1990's TSR on the head of Gygax is both ironic and insulting to the man.

R.A.

 

[Sargon]

Ok see if I get this right.

D20 products requires the three core books to be able to use it

OGL products stands alone, and does not need the three core books or any WOTC product to use it.

So a customer could potentially walk into a game store and see the Conan the RPG. He also sees D&D. He decides to buy Conan and then future suppliments for it. He never picks up D&D.

Technically you can play ogl d20 games and never buy a single WOTC rulebook.

I think a better way for WOTC would be to charge a license fee for anyone that wanted to make a d20 product.

Mongoose released a ogl version of the Player's handbook. How hard would it be to create an ogl version of the Pocket DMG and Pocket Monster Manual.

How soon will it be for more people to take the SRD and create their own Player's Handbook/Dmg/Monster Manual hybrids for their products and you won't have to buy WOTC ones. Monte Cook has already done this for the diamond throne world. You could easily use the srd to fill in the gaps and not use the DMG or Monster Manual at all.

Basicaly I agree with some thing Gygax said. Giving your game away for free might not be the best way to go about it.

 

[Sargon]

I've been playing D&D since I was eight years old... and until many years later I was ignorant of a lot of the history behind the game. Now that I know I'm inclined to say.. it is just that, history.

I've never been one to diefy anyone... and if often makes me come across as uncaring, but I'm of the opinion that Gary's perspective is slightly skewed.

Instead of posting a lengthy point by point argument I just want to put my two copper pieces into the discussion.

I love D20 and OGL to death, but I think that WotC have shot themselves in the foot with how they've approached it. They're taking sole responsiblity for the basic things, players handbooks, DMGs, Monster Manuels, and all premutations of such.

That is what they wanted, but now 3rd party publishers are releasing competitive things. Complete Warrior and Divine came out, however how many different class books are out there from 3rd party publishers. You could spend the rest of your d20 gaming dollars and never buy a WOTC product again.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

You know, you didn't have to take part in this particular discussion thread.

Granted, this is more of an "industry news" discussion so not many gamers are going to be interested as to what this impacts the RPG market, any more than the Wall Street Journal articles would impact a KMart shopper.

Why, as a matter of fact, yes I did. Just as you seemed to take part in the discussion. I respect Mr. Gygax for all he's done for the industry but his words won't stop the OGL, they won't stop really good publishers from using it.

The fact remains that D&D is out of his hands, WotC chose the OGL and it's been a very good thing for the game.

I remember posts on Dragonsfoot about people wishing they had the money to buy the D&D game and give it back to Gary. I hope it's a cold day in hell before that happens.

Good day to you,

Son of Thunder

 

[Ottergame]

I remember posts on Dragonsfoot about people wishing they had the money to buy the D&D game and give it back to Gary. I hope it's a cold day in hell before that happens.

Heh, I couldn't aggree more. Gary didn't do a good job with the brand the first 2 times he had it, I doubt third times a charm.