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Hack Or Heartbreaker?
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<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 7718297" data-attributes="member: 6677017"><p>I'm a strong proponent of the school of thought that system should fit the story/setting/game you want to play. While it was probably good that the d20 OGL saved D&D (since I enjoy D&D), the side effect was discouraging creativity in role-playing technology. Before there were OGLs (and before "game rules can't be copyrighted" became clearly established/known in the US) creating your own game required innovation. Necessity was the mother of invention, and I loved seeing the inventions.</p><p></p><p>With OGLs available, people think less about their systems. They consider what's out there to be close enough, tweak it, and run with it. Then they end up with a system that, in many cases, doesn't really fit their setting material (unless that setting is a close replication to the setting the OGL derives from, if there is one).</p><p></p><p>If this sounds like over-analyzing it, consider times when you've played really well-made role-playing games with their own unique custom systems. Would those games be anywhere near as good if they were just the setting slapped onto someone else's OGL?</p><p></p><p>Using an existing OGL is really only beneficial if you only want to produce a setting. If you basically want to play whatever the OGL was based on, and just want other people to enjoy your world, then it's fine. If you want to create a smooth experience with a new setting, you're significantly better off custom designing a setting that fits that.</p><p></p><p>I should also point out that there are multi-genre systems that can actually work well for more than one setting--because they were designed for a specific play experience which is a goal of those settings. But no system works well for every setting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 7718297, member: 6677017"] I'm a strong proponent of the school of thought that system should fit the story/setting/game you want to play. While it was probably good that the d20 OGL saved D&D (since I enjoy D&D), the side effect was discouraging creativity in role-playing technology. Before there were OGLs (and before "game rules can't be copyrighted" became clearly established/known in the US) creating your own game required innovation. Necessity was the mother of invention, and I loved seeing the inventions. With OGLs available, people think less about their systems. They consider what's out there to be close enough, tweak it, and run with it. Then they end up with a system that, in many cases, doesn't really fit their setting material (unless that setting is a close replication to the setting the OGL derives from, if there is one). If this sounds like over-analyzing it, consider times when you've played really well-made role-playing games with their own unique custom systems. Would those games be anywhere near as good if they were just the setting slapped onto someone else's OGL? Using an existing OGL is really only beneficial if you only want to produce a setting. If you basically want to play whatever the OGL was based on, and just want other people to enjoy your world, then it's fine. If you want to create a smooth experience with a new setting, you're significantly better off custom designing a setting that fits that. I should also point out that there are multi-genre systems that can actually work well for more than one setting--because they were designed for a specific play experience which is a goal of those settings. But no system works well for every setting. [/QUOTE]
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