Mike Mearls On the OGL

[The Little Raven]

Interesting. If WotC had been a custodian of the 3.5 OGC, expanding on the SRD with proven and tested variants and improvements, then the publishers might have felt more motivated to share and improve the core.

Remember, Mearls proposed an OGC wiki exactly for this purpose, and it didn't garner much support from publishers because most didn't want their OGC compiled into a free format.

 

[redcard]

Remember, Mearls proposed an OGC wiki exactly for this purpose, and it didn't garner much support from publishers because most didn't want their OGC compiled into a free format.

And THIS was the point that someone should have taken it and DONE IT ANYWAY.

If the gatekeepers do not allow anyone to alter the open content, you MUST get a new gatekeeper.

 

[The Little Raven]

They were not simply closed off-shoots of development.

Yes, they were. They were developed by a closed group of designers and developers, not open to the community. And even today, you don't have open development like that. The closest the industry has come is open alpha/beta testing like Pathfinder is doing.

 

[The Little Raven]

Would *you* pay $125/exam to take tests to become a WCDM (Wizards Certified Dungeon Master)?

So long as Chris Perkins is the one running the training program, I'd consider it. That man is an uber-DM.

 

[The Little Raven]

For Mike Mearls to say it has been a failure really shouldn't be seen as that much of a surprise - it all seems part of the present WotC war on the OGL.

Last time I checked, "I don't think it's fair to say that open gaming was a failure, it just took a different path in gaming when compared to software." is not calling the OGL a failure.

 

[Ximenes088]

I think it's apt to be a wee bit hard to fold improvements back into core D&D for a couple reasons.

1) Nobody can agree on what the improvements are. WotC's been giving 4e the kind of focus-group studying and playtesting that no third-party publisher can hope to have done, and they still get people screaming at the results.

2) The core rules cannot change rapidly. 3.0 to 3.5 was a relatively minor mechanical tweak, and we all know how that went over. When a new feature or optimization pops up in a piece of software, precious few people start wailing. WotC simply _cannot_ fold in improvements except at 8-10 year intervals without splintering their playerbase into useless little pieces.

 

[Hussar]

I think I've managed to create quite a successful 3rd party SRD, actually. I don't feel "prevented".

Funnily enough, the 3rd party SRD you created had ZERO to do with OGC material.

Google SRD you'll find plenty of publishers that embrced the option. Not even all of them use d20.

Dunno about your Google, but, my Google search of SRD turned up the 3.5 SRD in various forms, the Modern SRD and Spirit of the Century a fair ways down. That's only the top 50 results, to be honest, but, I'm thinking "plenty" might be stretching things.

Where's the Mongoose SRD? AEG? Sword and Sorcery? Malhavoc? Green Ronin?

I keep getting told how these companies are so devoted to the OGF, yet, when the time comes around to add to the pot, everyone's got their hands out to WOTC.

Y'know what? I keep having this same conversation. I'm tired of spinning my wheels here. Some people are obviously convinced that 3rd party publishers cannot do any wrong and that WOTC should be giving away everything they can to the OGF, while 3rd party publishers continue to block any effort to make OGC more available.

That's fine. You can believe that all you like. For my part, when the 3rd party publishers jumped up and said, "No way, you cannot take my OGC and reprint it!" they lost any and all sympathy from me.

Which is a shame really. My gaming shelf is about half and half WOTC and 3rd party. I LIKE d20 material by and large. But the actions of those who defend the OGL really leave me cold.

 

[redcard]

That's fine. You can believe that all you like. For my part, when the 3rd party publishers jumped up and said, "No way, you cannot take my OGC and reprint it!" they lost any and all sympathy from me.

But you can.

You can take their stuff and reprint it and put it on a wiki or do whatever. That's what the OGL says. See, in the opensource world that Dancey was trying to emulate with the OGL, if you get people saying stuff like that, their code gets copied, forked, and replaced.

If you're not willing to do that here, then you really don't care about Open , and you just are doing it for the warm fuzzies. Fine enough, but, still.. fork it if the people maintaining it are not following the OGL.

 

[The Little Raven]

Nope. Strictly speaking, they added to the pool of OGC which also includes the OGC material from the SRD but the SRD is a separate document.

And remember, several key OGC producers objected to having their OGC compiled into something like an SRD.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Funnily enough, the 3rd party SRD you created had ZERO to do with OGC material.

That's true, although it has quite a lot to do with the concept of Open OSRIC Content.