OGL; Is it working?

[swordsmasher]

hey guys,
I was just thinking about the OGL today, and I was wondering hat the original purpose for it was, along with Has it lived up to it and where do you think it will go in the future. Persoanlly, i think when 4e comes out in a few years, it will go bye bye. But if it does, does that mean 3rd party publishers could still put out stuff for 3.5?

 

[Psion]

There are things I would have like to see have come of it that never did -- like having the best mechanics sort of "rise to the top" and only a narrow few variants. Some fields saw way too much reinventing the wheel (look at how many mass combat systems there are.)

But largely, yes, I think it succeeded. There are many, many excellent products out there that would not have been possible from a company like wizards.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

I agree with Psion, the OGL has for the most part worked. Obviously, there are going to be many who disagree, because for each person the definition of "working" may be different.

I think that enough good has come for enough people, though, that it should probably be considered a success (maybe resounding and maybe only by the narrowest margin, but a success nonetheless).

For me personally, both 3.x and the OGL were a success. D&D 3.x (d20) resolved much of what I did not like in earlier editions of D&D. The OGL made it possible for True20 to be produced, which resolved even more of my issues.

So, for what it's worth, thank you OGL...

 

[BryonD]

I agree with Psion

Me too.

There is some significant unrealized potential.
But it has had a lot of success.

 

[jdrakeh]

hey guys,
I was just thinking about the OGL today, and I was wondering hat the original purpose for it was, along with Has it lived up to it and where do you think it will go in the future. Persoanlly, i think when 4e comes out in a few years, it will go bye bye. But if it does, does that mean 3rd party publishers could still put out stuff for 3.5?

The stated purpose of the OGL was to encourage 3rd party publishers to produce supplements (more recently it has been suggested that 'supplements' meant 'adventure mopdules' exclusively), driving core book sales, and thus, allowing WotC to focus primarily on publishing core books. Or at least that was the gist of the very early OGL 'master plan' explanations. I think it actually worked like that for a very short while.

As for the OGL going 'bye bye' - can't happen. It's a common misconception that WotC can dissolve the OGL. They can certainly stop using it in the future, but they can't retroactively declare it null and void or repeal copies of the license already in circulation. Why this misconception lingers, I do not know (there is no evidence to support it past paranoid delusion). So... to answer your question...

Yes. Even if WotC declines to publish 4e under the OGL, there is nothing to stop publishers from continuing to release material built on previously declared OGC under older versions of the license, nor will previously released material suddenly become unlawful.

 

[Umbran]

The licence is perpetual, and cannot be retracted, so 3rd party publishers could continue publishing 3.5 stuff until Doomsday.

I think it has largely doen what it was designed to do - take some of the weight of supporting D&D off WotC shoulders, and free them from having to devent their rights quite so aggressively.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I think it's great ... I don't think enough people EMBRACED it as much as they should have. Again, like was said above, I don't think enough solid systems came out that people adopted.

I think too many people felt like it was "stealing" or something. Or that "they could do better". A product like Grim Tales, one of my favorite, makes use of alot of OGC information to make something very useful.

I'd like to see more full-scale products that are just chock freakin' full of OGL material taken from all over and just tweaked "a bit" to do something else.

--fje

 

[Azgulor]

I can't speak to the success of OGL from WotC's perspective and to be honest, I don't really care.

From a GM & player perspective, however, OGL is a huge success. It's not an exaggeration that for me and my group, without OGL games we wouldn't be playing ANY form of d20. OGL has enabled companies to produce licensed property and genre-specific games that either would have never seen the light of day or would have sucked from being shoehorned into D&D's rules.

I don't think d20 (and D&D as well) could have obtained the market dominance that it has without the OGL enabling publishers to make it a truly customizable system. Yeah, D&D would still be the 800 lb. gorilla of the RPG industry, but I think there would be competing game systems in much stronger positions than there are today.

The fact that this stroke of genius can't be retroactively screwed up by Hasbro or WotC makes it pretty sweet as well.

Azgulor

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

If 4.0 isn't open will the contiuned used of the old OGL matter much at all? I'm guessing the vast bulk of the audience will leave 3.5 behind no matter how much moaning they do about it now. Suppose they change the stats a bit in 4.0 or change armor, etc? The OGL will be limited to what is in the 3.5 SRD right?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The great thing about the OGL is that it's permanent. WotC could go out of business tomorrow, and the 3rd party publishers could keep publishing until the market dried up and blew away like so much dust from a demilich. The thing about the OGL is that it can't "go bye bye." Nobody can shut it down now that the cat's out of the bag. Once something is declared open content, it's open forever. If 4E turns out to be a closed system (and IMO they'd be cutting their own throats to do that), 3.5 will still be open.

As for people dropping 3.5 for a non-OGL 4.0, I think that there's enough 3rd-party support to prevent the same kind of mass migration as we saw from 2nd edition. Remember, when 3rd edition came out, D&D was pretty much dead. TSR had gone under, and there was no support for the old material. The new material was a leap forward and came with tons of support, and still does. 4.0 will have to reinvent the wheel in order to be a compelling enough change to pull people away from what is essentially a tried-and-true system. And even if WotC dumps 3.5 completely, there's still the same bunch of companies providing 3rd party support. Probably more, since the core publisher will be out of the picture.

If 4.0 isn't open content, I predict a schism. I don't anticipate wanting to move to a new edition. It would have to be solid gold. I figure many people feel the same way. Especially if it means having to leave behind Green Ronin, Malhavoc, AEG, and the rest of the publishers we depend on for good support products. We've been through a monopoly era before. And now we've seen what happens with an open system. The open system makes a better market and provides us with better products. If you want people to play a new system, you have to give them a reason to do so. And that reason has to be: it's better than playing the old system. If you can't provide that, your product will fail.