New GSL Announcement

[BryonD]

I have also begun to lay the groundwork for a game that I hope will be viable under the non-fantasy d20 OGL. If it is not possible under that OGL, I already have another system on the backburner that I am willing to run with to make it happen.

I assume you meant GSL.

 

[JohnRTroy]

But there is really no system that I am aware of that attempts to do exactly what D&D does. The majority attempt to fill a niche that isn't yet filled by a major gaming system. No one has seriously tried making a game for that specific genre (mid-high fantasy) and that specific style (primarily dungeon crawl and linear adventure), because it was easier to just make a campaign setting or adventure module using the d20 Open Content and call it a day.

Actually, you have to remember that before the OGL existed there was about 25 years of RPG history. Just a few years after D&D took of there were systems that have tried to do almost exactly what D&D does. Perhaps the oldest of them were Tunnels & Trolls, Chivarly & Sorcery and RuneQuest. I think T&T especially had dungeon crawls, but I've never played that. Others include games like DragonQuest.

You can't really say people haven't tried to create a "better D&D"--there have been attempts since the 1970s. They just haven't gained a following that has eclipsed D&D. If D&D were to be surpassed by another tabletop RPG--it already has been beaten in gaming if you count the CCGs and CRPGs--my bet is something completely different will surpass it for market share, such as the Urban Fantasy of White Wolf or another genre. I believe it would take a long time and a slow movement to remove D&D from the top of the Fantasy RPG heap--barring anything like the company going into bankruptcy or killing the product.

 

[gideon_thorne]

No one has seriously tried making a game for that specific genre (mid-high fantasy) and that specific style (primarily dungeon crawl and linear adventure),

Actually, a system called Castles and Crusades (C&C) attempts to do just that. Seems to be pretty popular too. ^_~`

 

[see]

But there is really no system that I am aware of that attempts to do exactly what D&D does.

How exact is exact? I mean, Tunnels & Trolls, RuneQuest, the Palladium Roleplaying Game (later retitled the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game after Palladium did other games), and Earthdawn all pretty much were aimed directly at the D&D market, while the Fantasy Trip and Rolemaster both began as subsystems to add directly to a D&D game before growing into full games.

 

[pawsplay]

Don't forget Swordbearer, the Arcanum, and Powers & Perils.

 

[Cergorach]

That's an interesting view; clearly WotC believes otherwise. Where do you derive the conclusion that the OGL is what made D&D the big dog - as opposed to, say, ownership of the established brand name combined with far greater resouces?

The brand name is what makes D&D a 'big dog', but I (and many with me) think that the OGL made D&D a 'bigger dog'. Why would I think that?

1.) The OGL created a LOT of goodwill from the gaming community, and beyond. It was some very good free publicity for D&D. Comparing it with Open Source Software made D&D more 'normal' and 'acceptable' to the general populace.
2.) The OGL (and D20) was linked to D&D, that made it a popular choice to make RPG material for. Because D&D sells, so did OGL/D20. Third party publishers made supplements that WotC would never make or only made much later, that attracted folks that would never have looked at D&D without third party products. Necromancer promoted a 1E feel for 3E D&D, that attracted a lot of older gamers to 3E. The list is long, folks that would never have touched D&D were suddenly interested in rolling that D20. Even if you were playing Spycraft, Traveller D20, Babylon 5, Conan, or a Mecha game, you were using the basic rules of D&D. That made D&D the defacto RPG operating system.
3.) Having a larger piece of the RPG market pie tied to your system not only hurts your competition, but at such a small scale, drives your competition out of business. Small print runs are not viable for most publishers. Since the introduction of the OGL, I've seen a lot less non-OGL game systems in print from the distributors. The digital age (pdf) and print on demand have created the possibility of small scale distribution, but those solutions just don't have shelve space at the RPG shops.

WotC eliminated much of the competition in the last decade or at least tied the competition to the D&D system. After that decade most of the surviving publishers that are tied to D&D are so dependant on D&D for their income that WotC can dictate more profitable (for WotC) license terms for a new version of D&D. Tying those publishers even closer to the D&D system, with even more control for WotC. It's a very cunning move on the part of WotC.

I'm very curious what companies like Mongoose will do, they were created on D&D accessory sales and attempts at expansion have faltered or failed (miniature lines have collapsed). On the other hand, companies like Fantasy Flight have moved on from publishing D20 material as their main source of income (fifth largest board-game company in the world). Green Ronin (Mutants & Masterminds, True20) and Crafty Games (SpyCraft) have developed their own unique systems based on the D&D system, but don't need a way to tie their systems into D&D 4E. I'm curious to see if Paizo will continue with their Pathfinder system under the OGL, and if they'll succeed to get a decent following/community.

 

[xechnao]

3.) Having a larger piece of the RPG market pie tied to your system not only hurts your competition, but at such a small scale, drives your competition out of business. Small print runs are not viable for most publishers. Since the introduction of the OGL, I've seen a lot less non-OGL game systems in print from the distributors. The digital age (pdf) and print on demand have created the possibility of small scale distribution, but those solutions just don't have shelve space at the RPG shops.

WotC eliminated much of the competition in the last decade or at least tied the competition to the D&D system.

Actually that was good competition for Wotc because it defined the gamer market itself. The gamer market can not hold on its feet with only one system: it will eventually collapse. Unless D&D is to totally become a board game in the future, if Wotc cares not to, this thing must stop.

 

[Tao]

Actually, you have to remember that before the OGL existed there was about 25 years of RPG history. Just a few years after D&D took of there were systems that have tried to do almost exactly what D&D does. Perhaps the oldest of them were Tunnels & Trolls, Chivarly & Sorcery and RuneQuest. I think T&T especially had dungeon crawls, but I've never played that. Others include games like DragonQuest.

You can't really say people haven't tried to create a "better D&D"--there have been attempts since the 1970s. They just haven't gained a following that has eclipsed D&D. If D&D were to be surpassed by another tabletop RPG--it already has been beaten in gaming if you count the CCGs and CRPGs--my bet is something completely different will surpass it for market share, such as the Urban Fantasy of White Wolf or another genre. I believe it would take a long time and a slow movement to remove D&D from the top of the Fantasy RPG heap--barring anything like the company going into bankruptcy or killing the product.

Wow... that'll teach me to not think my ideas all the way through.

So, yes, there have been some attempts. And that's actually my point, I guess. If you look at the publishing dates of all of those systems, most came around pre-OGL. The fact that only one of the many systems named was published during the OGL years (and lets face it, Castles and Crusades is very D&Desque, almost to the point of being another edition of the same system, similar to the idea of "Pathfinder = D&D 3.75" that's going around right now) seems indicative of the very phenomenon I am trying to point out.

The OGL kept people from developing unique systems end encouraged them to stick with WotC's d20 system. You went from at least a half-dozen different fantasy roleplaying games down to one (that mattered)... and a dozen companies making supplements to that one. In my opinion, it would be naive to believe that the OGL had nothing to do with that huge shift in the way that small game publishers were developing.

Again... I am not saying whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. I am not even saying that the conversion from OGL to GSL is going to have a negative impact on Wizards of the Coast's immediate market share. In all likelihood it won't. What I am saying is that the OGL did bring about a shift in the way small publishers did business. What I am also saying is that if it becomes too difficult to play by WotC's rules, instead of "True 20" and "Mutants and Masterminds" and other "modified d20 system games" we're very likely going to see those same people developing well outside of Wizard's box, just like they did before the OGL. That has the potential to go a lot of different ways, and I would be interested to see what kinds of game systems start popping up in the next few years. I don't doubt that a lot of them would be crushed beneath the 4e behemoth, but who knows... maybe something interesting will come of it. And maybe, a decade or so down the road, someone will really strike gaming gold.

I think for anyone to imagine that Wizards of the Coast will topple in the next decade is a bit naive. They could print a book full of empty pages with the D&D logo on the cover and it would still sell at this point. However, their actions now will greatly effect the gaming landscape over the course of the next decade or so, and I don't see it as a necessarily bad thing. The people who want to work closely with Wizards are going to be brought even closer. The people who "kind of" wanted to do their own thing are going to have to be just a tiny bit more creative. Neither of those options sounds that bad to me.

I assume you meant GSL.

Ack... too... many... acronyms...

Yes. I meant GSL. My mistake.

 

[Orcus]

Actually, you have to remember that before the OGL existed there was about 25 years of RPG history.

I cant believe I actually agree with JRT on something.

 

[Wicht]

Tunnels and Trolls does not belong in the same catergory as D&D. It was more a tongue in cheek spoof of D&D (IMO). One of the supplements for instance was called "Rat on a Stick," with rules for the PCs to operate a Rat on a Stick franchise outside of the dungeons.

But yeah, there were/are other games that try/tried to do what D&D does.