Ryan Dancey - D&D in a Death Spiral

[Hussar]

Pick any 3pp book you own and flip to the back page, OGL, Section 15.

I doubt you really looked, or would have known it if you saw it, or would have cared if you did.

Care to specify a date?

3e era OGC? Not so much cross pollination. Post 4e? Lots and lots more.

It took a heck of a long time for 3pp to get their act together and start cooperating.

I've got a stack of Scarred Lands books that don't use a single bit from other publishers. Living Imagination? Nope. Mystic Eye Games used a single creature for it's Urban Blight book. I've got four years of Dragon magazines without a single line of OGC (Granted, they weren't allowed.). Never mind a bucket full of pdf's with pretty sparse Section 15's. I've got half a dozen AEG books, none of which use material from other publishers. My Mongoose books don't either.

How much cross pollination was going on depends on when you want to start counting.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Huh? Not sure if we're talking about the same thing (we might be). I'm not saying that 3rd Party publishers didn't use the OGL license, but how many of them used significant OGC content from other companies works? Granted, I didn't scour the section 15's of all the books I own, but I really doubt it's significant . . . . or am I way off base here as you seem to imply?

I'm certainly too lazy to head out to the garage, unbox some of that stuff, and start looking . . . .

I think it depends on publishers. Some were liberal with stuff, but others didn't use anything but the core SRD and their own rules.

At first, I personally swallowed the OGL concept and really believed in it, and I wanted to support stuff that was 100% OGL, and reference many works in one main adventure.

Practically speaking, however, using a lot of OGL sources has a catch-22 effect. Ideally, for economic reasons, you'd probably want to just reference content in short form "stat blocks", and the OGC section would hopefully lead to more sales for the creator. But I can see from the consumer end, they might resent having to buy 3-6 books to find out the details. And if you end up including the whole shebang, like put the full monster stats in the appendix, then you're sort of leeching more from the original publisher, and discouraging the person from purchasing the original source.

From what products I purchased, I noticed very little re-use of 3pp content outside of the SRD, with the exception of two items.

1) Creature Catalog and Creature Catalog 2, which were the first big OGL products from a major publisher, so they were first to market.

2) Tome of Horrors I--which pretty much IMO did not have to do with Necromancer's own brand, but simply because it was an authorized collection of monsters that we all knew, created by E-Gansta Gygax and Da You Kay Crew (from Fiend Folio), with assistance from TeaSaR posse. In other words, the product mostly benefitted from the D&D legacy rather than anything new.

Beyond those two, I didn't see many, maybe one or two isolated references in individual products.

 

[JohnRTroy]

You know, this came up for me first because I ended up allowing options into my home game. And then, to make things easier for my players, I began to consider how I could make those options available to them.

But all the examples you said if there wasn't an OGL aren't that restricted. The only thing the OGL gives you is the freedom to publish. And if you're not a commercial publisher, you don't really need it. Without the OGL, here are the rules.

In your mind, no problem, there are no thought police.

In your home, on your own computer, in your house, same here.

Share a campaign on the Internet, well, let's see. There are lots of options there. You can keep it private and distribute data via e-mail. You can have a private network or peer to peer or sharing. And some game publishers may not mind stuff being published on a web site. You don't have to have all the game stats listed--in fact, I would think you'd want to HIDE stuff from the players. You can describe a world, a setting, and not violate WoTC or copyrights as long as what you publish is more generic.

The only thing the OGL gave people is an implicit right to PUBLISH. And I have a feeling most of the D&D players and DMs don't give a damn about publishing their stuff. (If the OGL was really a big deal, more people would have resisted 4e). But at the end of the day, unless you have a money making business as a 3pp, it doesn't make that much of a difference from the player or DM side of things.

 

[BryonD]

or am I way off base here as you seem to imply?

You are pretty far off base.

Certainly there was a lot of stuff without any "building" elements. But well before 4E, a lot of the big names had very extensive Section 15s.

Grim Tales
Spycraft
Nearly everything Necromancer did
A lot of Green Ronin's stuff

It was there.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But all the examples you said if there wasn't an OGL aren't that restricted. The only thing the OGL gives you is the freedom to publish. And if you're not a commercial publisher, you don't really need it.

Sorry, but that is untrue. Not being a commercial publisher does not give you free reign with the IP of others. RCFG is not a commerical publication -- I make nothing off of it -- but you can be certain I am not using non-OGC materials taken from anyone.

Share a campaign on the Internet, well, let's see. There are lots of options there. You can keep it private and distribute data via e-mail. You can have a private network or peer to peer or sharing.

See, from my POV, hiding the materials and sharing the materials are diametrically opposed goals. YMMV.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yeah, but I doubt you'd be surprised to find you're in the minority.

The amount of OGC has never influenced my buying behaviour.

I would not be surprised if I were in the minority, the majority, or somewhere close to 50/50. I have no data on which to form a firm opinion, and merely speculate.

Would you be surprised to learn you were in the minority?

3e era OGC? Not so much cross pollination. Post 4e? Lots and lots more.

It took a heck of a long time for 3pp to get their act together and start cooperating.

Using the OGL means having to copy all of the Section 15 data from every book you use. Working on RCFG has meant having to copy an awful lot of Section 15 data. I can assure you, cross-pollination occurred well before 4e.

What you see post-4e (or late 3e) is the production of additional rulesets, which tend to cross-pollinate more than sourcebooks or adventures do. But, once there is enough material to work with, cross-pollination is pretty regular. Green Ronin, for example, actively encouraged other publishers to use monsters from Jade Dragons and Hungry Ghosts, because they could see the obvious advantages of doing so.

Fifth Element, working on the Grand OGL Wiki, might know a bit more about it!


RC

 

[Jhaelen]

Would you be surprised to learn you were in the minority?

Of course!

Naturally, all the evidence I have is anecdotal. If I asked everyone I personally know and game with what they think of OGL/OGC, I would get nothing but blank stares. They probably wouldn't even know what I'm talking about.

In fact that's an experiment I might try
However, you'd dismiss the results as meaningless, anyway (which in a way they certainly are).

I think, this board is the only place I've ever seen long discussions about the topic. And that's probably because a lot of publishers visit this board.

A minority of D&D players visits internet forums. Of them a minority visits this board. Of them only a minority engages in discussions about OCG/OGL. That alone indicates that only a minority cares about OGC/OGL!

But, yeah, I cannot prove you're in the minority which is quite likely all you care about

 

[Raven Crowking]

But, yeah, I cannot prove you're in the minority which is quite likely all you care about

Again, I would not be surprised if I were in the minority, the majority, or somewhere close to 50/50. I have no data on which to form a firm opinion, and merely speculate.

I may hold a belief regarding where I fall, but I would not be surprised at all to learn (in this case) that my belief is wrong. My level of evidence in determining that belief is very low, and, as a result, it would take a pretty low bar to shift me in that belief.


RC

 

[JohnRTroy]

Sorry, but that is untrue. Not being a commercial publisher does not give you free reign with the IP of others. RCFG is not a commerical publication -- I make nothing off of it -- but you can be certain I am not using non-OGC materials taken from anyone.

You miss my point. My point is that, if your goal is to share your campaign with your players or collaborators, you don't need the OGL to be a DM. If your goal is to publish to the world, regardless of your size, then yes, but then you cross the line from just running a campaign to running a publishing house. Your initial statements made it sound like the lack of an OGL prevented you from legally sharing stuff with your private group, and that's not true. You simply aren't allowed to publish.

And I would say 99% of players and DMs don't give a damn about publishing their stuff, sharing their work, etc. Even creative DMs might just keep some sketchy notes and play their campaign "on the fly". Not every DM is suited to write for the public, and they may not have the desire.

As far as the evidence, well, considering how well 4e took over, it doesn't seem that the OGL truly mattered in terms of making the game more or less popular. While some fans have specifically rejected it because of the OGL, I suspect more people reject the new D&D because it is different, and the OGL itself is a very minor consideration. Ryan actually stated that the OGL would prevent WoTC from effectively changing the game too much without "forking" the game. While the "fork" did happen (Pathfinder, et al), it turned out the brand loyalty was stronger than this principle.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You miss my point, I suspect.

My goal is to open my campaign world up to pbp players, who must have access to the rules. I have no intention of limiting myself to the subset of potential players I am playing with now. And key to that is the ability to say "Here is the ruleset. Here is the campaign guide. Who is interested?".

If I wanted to supply info solely to current players, you would of course be correct.


RC