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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delta" data-source="post: 4312705" data-attributes="member: 40269">I'm somewhat amused by this. I've been in a lot of discussions where I point out that Ryan Dancey's original idea for Open Gaming was to have open, iterative advancement of the mechanics. (That's specifically what brought me back to the 3E.) But whenever I've said that I get massive flack for misunderstanding the goal of the OGL.Well, here's Mearls now, again saying the exact same thing. It's the first thing he mentions in the article, the biggest section, and the only point of disappointment. But once again I'll say that the fault for this not working lies squarely with WOTC. As the 800-pound gorilla, they had to demonstrate that outside rule changes and demands were being incorporated back into the core rules (as stated in Dancey's original FAQ, still up at Wizards.com). They completely didn't do that -- very quickly walking away from Open Gaming, ditching Ryan Dancey, and cooking up 3.5E within 36 months that took off in a completely unpredictable direction. In later years the excuse for this has been that WOTC has such spectacular designers in-house that no one else's designs could possibly be useful in comparison. But that's classic "cathedral vs. bazaar" thinking which itself shows that Open Sourcing was being rejected by WOTC before it ever had a chance to prove itself.</blockquote>