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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2495119" data-attributes="member: 14159">Look at where the gaming industry would be without the OGL.  The OGL has given us a huge variety of manufacturers, gaming styles, settings, and games, many of which would have been ignored utterly by the gaming public if not for being (at least loosely) compatible with d20.  How many times has a game company brought a licensed RPG or an interesting new setting to market, only to hear "I would have bought it if it was d20".  If it was completely unrelated, many gamers will generally ignore it.  Yes, a lot of d20 materials brought out early on were utter rubbish, but a few gems have emerged over timeSaying that the OGL is a failure because other game systems still exist is a fallacy.  The idea was, in part, to decrease transition time between games, so that you didn't have to relearn everything to play in every new game.  I live right next to a very large, very well stocked FLGS, and frankly, at least 1/2 their retail space is devoted to d20 type merchandise, with most of the rest being WW, then GURPS, and everything else.  You can mention HARP and frankly some systems I've never even heard of (Burning Wheel, what the heck is that?), but their share of the market, and gamers minds, is minimal.Even if the "d20" market is split from the core 3.5 crowd, the variants on d20 are still fairly similar.  Spycraft, Arcana Evolved, C&C, Iron Heroes and so on are still pretty similar to "core d20/D&D".  Transition time and effort to go between them is much less than going, say, from GURPS or DeadLands to D&D.  You'll never have the One True Orthodox Game System which is used by all.  Never going to happen, d20/OGL is as close as you're going to get.  There are too many differences in play style, preferences, and genres for there to be a One True Game.  For example, the girlfriend of one of my friends decided to try out RPG's.  After a trip though our FLGS, she picked up her first book: Blue Rose.  Now, when she had rules questions, she asked her boyfriend and myself for advice.  Neither one of us knew anything specifically about the True20 ruleset, but we could easily answer her basic questions with a quick glance through the rulebook to familiarize ourselves with the changes and basic tenets of d20 design.  Although we had no experience specialized with that system, we were still able to answer most basic questions and pick up the differences very quickly.  If not for the OGL, her first game may have been something we'd had no knowledge of, and would have been utterly unable to help her.Also, as has been pointed out, the OGL (combined with a more enlightened attitude about IP from large corporatiosn) has lead to a virtual renaissance online of RPG's.  Increases in fan sites, fan produced RPG material, online gaming communities and sites (like this one, think TSR of 10 years ago would have tolerated a site like ENWorld's very existence?).  The OGL issued in a new era of gaming, and it's still unfolding, but it's clearly been good for the industry in the long term so far, and for the forseeable future.</blockquote>

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