PC Gamer: OGL not worth fighting for.

[overgeeked]

We can debate the pros and cons of PC Gamer's observations all we like.

In the end, I think WotC has made up its mind and is non-persuadable on the OGL issue to make further meaningful concessions. We are getting a NEW open license, the form of which will be genericized for ORC, but which will focus upon either a SRD for PF2 or an SRD for the 5e forked clone proposed by Kobold Press' "Project Black Flag". I am sure there will be others to come, but those are the big two of consequence in the near term.

Who knows? Maybe this is exactly what fuels real competition for WotC and may amount to a shiv to its kidneys. One can hope.

Exactly. We can engage in all the internet discussions we’d like, fill out their survey all we want, but in the end, the decision is going to be made by some suit in an office who doesn’t care about the hobby or the industry outside of D&D, only the quarterly report and making as much money as possible.

The only control over the situation we have is how we respond to it. But the decision itself is not ours to make.

There are other games to play. Thousands of them. Dozens more being released every day. There are other big-name games with non-OGL licenses that people can write content for. No, none of them are as big as D&D. There is no perfect solution. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

If the only thing you’ll accept is WotC completely rolling over and things going back to the way they were a month ago, you’re in for a shock. That reality is dead. The new reality is what we have, what we need to come to terms with, and what we have to work with going forward.

WotC nuked the D&D ecosystem. They can’t un-nuke it even if they wanted to. And they don’t want to. That was literally the point. “But the orphaned works!” Yeah. They’re gone. It’s sad and it sucks. But they’re still gone.

Time to move another step or two along the stages of grief.

 

[Alzrius]

I swear, this article is what happens when you have people who aren't tabletop RPG gamers reporting on what's happening in our community.

Now, I'll admit up front that all I know about the person who wrote that article is what's in the bio at the end. It talks about them being a PC gamer, and only mentions RPGs in that context. Given that it looks like a standard cut-and-paste bio, maybe they're a lifelong tabletop gamer and that just wasn't put there. But it doesn't sound like it; or if they are, they don't know very much about the OGL, because this misses critical context by presenting this entire debacle as an issue of third-party 5E products.

Let's leave aside for a moment the issues regarding D&D's dominance of the tabletop RPG market, and instead realize that there are quite a few other RPGs out there – RPGs which this writer says we should be giving a chance – which were made because of the OGL, and which are imperiled because they rely on the 3.5 SRD, something that almost certainly won't be ported over to Paizo's ORC License, probably won't be put under CC (and if so, expect it to be just a fraction), and may or may not be put under the v1.2 OGL which no one apparently wants to sign.

I've said several times now, in various threads here, how games like Pathfinder 1E, Mutants & Masterminds, and various OSR retro-clones are all looking at potentially vanishing due to the uncertainty swirling around the current circumstances, because that keeps getting lost in the discussion. Hell, I'm still not sure how well Paizo's plans to publish Starfinder and Pathfinder 2E without the OGL will really work (presuming that WotC elects to file suit against them, which seems iffy).

There's more to this than the 5E third-party community, and I wish the reporting in the wider gaming press would reflect that, but it never seems to because so many of them don't understand the full scope of exactly what they're talking about.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't agree with everything said in the article.

But this:


He's not wrong...

The vast swath of D&D players completely unwilling to even try another game is something unique to RPG's compared to the computer gaming industry.

Most RPG players are not "gamers" in the general sense. Most RPG players are specifically D&D gamers.

I’m not sure that analogy really works. A TTRPG is more like a game engine than an individual video game. D&D is more like the Unreal of the tabletop space, and in that sense it makes sense that a lot of developers would want to stick with the best-supported engine unless they had a specific reason to use a different one.

 

[Umbran]

I think there is a difference between flannel wearing Forge types ....

Mod Note:
Look, we could do without the denigrating language all around. How about we be better than that, hm? Thanks much.

 

[Clint_L]

Also, I'm Canadian. Flannel wearing is a high compliment around these parts, so that insult didn't even land.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Also, I'm Canadian. Flannel wearing is a high compliment around these parts, so that insult didn't even land.

Hence, everyone's favorite game. Ironically commenting on the 90s, or Clearly Canadian?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Also, I'm Canadian. Flannel wearing is a high compliment around these parts, so that insult didn't even land.

I live in Portland. Flannel capitol of the US since 1991

 

[Clint_L]

Up here, flannel is for when you want to dress comfortably, but you can also use it when dressing up. But not too far up. For that, you need all denim.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I have seen ZERO vitriol towards Steve Jackson Games, for example, saying this on their website: (Note, also like Wizard's statements, SJG specifically includes computer implementation and MUDs/MUSHes/etc or anything cobbled together at home/school)

"No . . . it's not legal to take the GURPS rules and base a game on them without formal permission. SJ Games is open to licensing inquiries from professional developers – contact licensing@sjgames.com – but, to preserve system integrity and protect the possibility of a professional computer implementation, the company does not grant permission for "homebrew" games or M*s to use the GURPS name and rules."

There's no vitriol because that's always been their license. They didn't build an entire industry around an open license that allowed others to build companies and portfolios only to suddenly attempt to close it. If they did, you'd probably see a similar reaction.

 

[Solauren]

to a degree you are correct, but 1/2e vs 3e vs 4e vs 5e are very different games in their own right (some closer to each other than their immediate successor).

Esp. in todays market you can find ones closer to 5e than that is to say 4e

'

I found pre 3e very easy to port to 3e. Didn't like 4e cause you couldn't port worth beans, never tried with 5e (looks like it would be doable, however). BUT, counting them seperate for this discussion is a little like counting the various versions of Windows that came out starting with Windows 95 as unrelated and different operating systems. Same basic shell/skin/interface and rule set at it's core. Just some feature differences.