OGL; Is it working?

[Mark CMG]

I (. . .) think a large number of people say "D20" when they mean "the D&D game I play".

I think this is the crux of the difference of opinion that has developed in this thread and I don't believe that I agree with you. It might have been true in the early days of d20 but I think the d20 audience has grown to understand that the term embraces a much more diverse and varied collection of materials and genres. I may be wrong, of course.

 

[Psion]

Oh, and books like Thieves World and Black Company aren't support for Dungeons and Dragons?

Oh, I definitely think they are. And Game of Thrones. And, despite the fact that Blue Rose / True20 are a bit further from the core, it is too.

Why?

How many times have you heard a statement to the effect of "I don't play D&D anymore because it doesn't do magic / can't make characters like [insert favorite novel]"?

Not all of these are immediately useful to core d20 games. But they keep the player comfortable with D&D/d20, and address inflexibilities and a desire for more latitude in the rules. And, those that are close to the core (by far my preference) give DMs the tools to give their homebrews a bit more of a feel like their favored literature.

Yeah, I'd call that support.

 

[Glyfair]

I think this is the crux of the difference of opinion that has developed in this thread and I don't believe that I agree with you. It might have been true in the early days of d20 but I think the d20 audience has grown to understand that the term embraces a much more diverse and varied collection of materials and genres. I may be wrong, of course.

I think it's a matter of different definitions of the term "d20" coming into use (whether they are technically correct or not). One definiton is obviously those products that use the license and have the d20 logo on them. However, another definition that's grown into use is "D&D products not published by WotC or Kenzer."

I think the second definition grew because a number of people would jump on people who would say something like "I really like the new D&D book, "Book of Eldritch Might" by Monte Cook" and people would jump on them saying it wasn't a D&D product, but a d20 product.

I think a simple term is probably needed to refer to those d20 products that are intended to be directly usable in the "standard" D&D campaign.

 

[BryonD]

I think this is the crux of the difference of opinion that has developed in this thread and I don't believe that I agree with you. It might have been true in the early days of d20 but I think the d20 audience has grown to understand that the term embraces a much more diverse and varied collection of materials and genres. I may be wrong, of course.

Among ENworlders (rpgnet, etc), then yes.
Among others, I doubt it. Maybe I'm the one that is wrong here. But its not my experience.
Heck, my own players don't really appreciate the difference.

There are the people who don't really understand the difference.
There are the people who do, but aren't greatly interested in a lot of non D&D direct support stuff.
And there are people embrace the varied collection.

Of the D20 gamers out there, I think the first two groups represent a large fraction. Large enough that it makes a difficult market even harder. If group 3 is 75% (which I doubt), then that 25% loss will hurt.

I'm certainly in group 2.

 

[BryonD]

Yeah, I'd call that support.

And anyone who argued against you would be foolish.
But I think you among the top of the heap when it comes to people who want to and excel at blending a lot of material into a cohesive framework.
Not meaning to kiss up, but I've read a lot you have to say about how you put your games together and you are not a good example of the average gamer.

There are a lot of people who would call it support. But there are more people who would call P&P support.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I would definitely see it as support for d20 Modern!

In fact...country or region books for Modern gamers...hrrrmmm...

The quote from Mr. Dancey spells it out: OGL was meant to sell players handbooks and stifle competitors. The fact that other companies have created alternative approaches to fantasy gaming using the OGL probably gives the Wizards staff nightsweats, since it "splinters the market" (I believe that was the phrase I've heard), but as a consumer who prefers these alternatives to The World's Most Ubiquitous Role Playing Game, I think it's ducky.

OGL? Great for consumers - may not have worked out quite the way Wizards thought it would, though (and thank goodness it didn't!).

Oh, and books like Thieves World and Black Company aren't support for Dungeons and Dragons? That seems like a terribly narrow view of what can and can't be done with the rules options in these books. I suppose if one takes the view that Dungeons and Dragons is its own specific fantasy genre, than this might hold true - the options are not "more of the same." On the other hand, if D&D is truly a "generic" fantasy RPG, how could anything in those books be any less 'core' than the content in Unearthed Arcana?

As they said on the RPGradio.net podcast, a lot of people have always, and still do, consider Thieves' World to be the ultimate D&D setting. Having listened to the description of the Player's Guide on that podcast (and having spent 15 minutes leafing through it), I'd say it's D&D just as surely as a Forgotten Realms campaign with a few options from Unearthed Arcana is D&D. It's just not that different.

 

[Ranger REG]

hey guys,
I was just thinking about the OGL today, and I was wondering hat the original purpose for it was,

Initially for WotC, it's to give outside publishers the toolkit to make supporting niche products while they concentrate on core rulebooks, assuming the publisher wishes to use the OGL and the d20STL.

Initially for Ryan Dancey, to give WotC support from companies that may or may not employ former TSR/WotC designers, but in the long term give publishers a chance to "spread out" on their own with a Linux-like template. Mongoose is an example of such a company who started as a nobody publishing d20 Slayer's Guides and now licensee of many famous brand RPGs.

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 Open Gaming License is like a pen-n-paper version of the computer code-based GPL. It will never go away, so long there are Open Gaming Content to be used.

The SRD-based rules engine may lose it trademarked name -- d20 System -- but it is still available for any creative publishers to incorporate into their game product. We've already seen second- and third- generation rules engines spawned from the SRD. And they are fast becoming well-known established ruleset for future products lines. It's only a matter of time before other labels (e.g., True20) will be as known or surpass the popularity of the trademarked d20 System, which may fade into RPG obscurity.

But that depends on whether WotC will continue to support d20 Modern into the next edition, and whether that line will also be marked "off-limit" or not.

 

[JoeGKushner]

As they said on the RPGradio.net podcast, a lot of people have always, and still do, consider Thieves' World to be the ultimate D&D setting. Having listened to the description of the Player's Guide on that podcast (and having spent 15 minutes leafing through it), I'd say it's D&D just as surely as a Forgotten Realms campaign with a few options from Unearthed Arcana is D&D. It's just not that different.

I'm going to disagree with you. It has a different basis in terms of magic and overall feel. It's not really about alignments and high powered magic.

It can be put into D&D, but many people I know don't look at the Thieves World book with the d20 logo and think, "Hmm... wonder how I can fit that into my campaign." They pick up Champions of Valor, a FR book, for an example, and see feats, substitution levels, PrCs, spells, magic items, etc... that assume a D&D/fantasy d20 standard. Are there things in Thieves World that can be added to a D&D game? Certainly, especially if you're looking for a new campaign setting. Is it necessarily what people would think of when they think d20 support though?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Oh, I definitely think they are. And Game of Thrones. And, despite the fact that Blue Rose / True20 are a bit further from the core, it is too.

Why?

How many times have you heard a statement to the effect of "I don't play D&D anymore because it doesn't do magic / can't make characters like [insert favorite novel]"?

Not all of these are immediately useful to core d20 games. But they keep the player comfortable with D&D/d20, and address inflexibilities and a desire for more latitude in the rules. And, those that are close to the core (by far my preference) give DMs the tools to give their homebrews a bit more of a feel like their favored literature.

Yeah, I'd call that support.

Can't say I agree 100% with that. $50 bones is a lot of money to spend on a supplement that you're not going to be using in the mainline, for example, Game of Thrones. Great game, but if I wanted something standard to use in my D&D campaign, I'd pick up the Spell Compendium or Champions of Valor as a counter example.

 

[Henry]

...if I wanted something standard to use in my D&D campaign, I'd pick up the Spell Compendium or Champions of Valor as a counter example.

I think Psion's rather saying that they support D&D in that they keep players in the d20 realm rather than having them go off into another game system entirely. Ryan Dancey five years ago said that one of the other goals of OGL was to reduce the number of competing systems out there, to reduce the cycle time for a player to "come back to D&D" - in other words, speed up the Skaff Effect.