D&D 5E So, 5e OGL

[Dausuul]

You know, while a 5E OGL would be nice to have, there's a lot we can do already with the existing OGL.

Look at the statblock of a 5E monster, for instance; it's very close to a 3E statblock. If Wizards doesn't make the Monster Manual open content, it should be possible to create an "OGL Bestiary" with conversions of monsters from the original SRD. As long as you don't directly copy the text of the 5E Monster Manual, and don't duplicate monster stats down to the last hit point, your only concern would be avoiding any 5E-specific terminology--and there is virtually nothing that is 5E-specific terminology. Wizards went out of their way to reuse mechanic names from earlier editions, even when the mechanics themselves had changed.

Then release the "OGL Bestiary" as open content, and anyone can use it freely to create adventures or what have you.

It'd be tougher to create 5E splatbooks, of course. But I bet it could be done.

 

[Blackbrrd]

You know, while a 5E OGL would be nice to have, there's a lot we can do already with the existing OGL.

Look at the statblock of a 5E monster, for instance; it's very close to a 3E statblock. If Wizards doesn't make the Monster Manual open content, it should be possible to create an "OGL Bestiary" with conversions of monsters from the original SRD. As long as you don't directly copy the text of the 5E Monster Manual, and don't duplicate monster stats down to the last hit point, your only concern would be avoiding any 5E-specific terminology--and there is virtually nothing that is 5E-specific terminology. Wizards went out of their way to reuse mechanic names from earlier editions, even when the mechanics themselves had changed.

Then release the "OGL Bestiary" as open content, and anyone can use it freely to create adventures or what have you.

It'd be tougher to create 5E splatbooks, of course. But I bet it could be done.

I think your reasoning is sound. It also makes me think we are going to see something very similar to the 3e SRD. I think WotC is looking at the bigger picture (and the competitors) and see that D&D will lose too much market share if they don't take a steps to make D&D easily available.

Assuming they release a well thought out SRD on a good digital platform for everything from smartphones to linux desktop PC's, I think they will get a lot of good will and market share* that they lost with 4e.

*Hopefully by attracting new gamers, not stealing from Paizo

 

[GMMichael]

The 3rd edition OGL did two things:

1) Allow lots of awesome d20-branded products to hit the shelves - that I didn't want to buy.
2) Homogenize the roleplaying landscape in the same way that Walmart homogenizes small towns.

Are we expecting different results from a 5th edition OGL?

 

[Morrus]

The 3rd edition OGL did two things:

1) Allow lots of awesome d20-branded products to hit the shelves - that I didn't want to buy.
2) Homogenize the roleplaying landscape in the same way that Walmart homogenizes small towns.

Are we expecting different results from a 5th edition OGL?

I don't expect it to produce products that you, specifically, want to buy, no. I expect that it, like the original OGL, would produce products that many people who aren't you will want to buy. And a well-supported game has an advantage.

 

[mhensley]

The only reason I stayed playing 3e as long as I did was because the ogl allowed 3rd parties to produce the kind of adventures that I wanted. I still find that I have little interest in wotc adventures and plan on converting my old necromancer games modules to 5e. Without an ogl, 5e will be greatly limited.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I don't expect it to produce products that you, specifically, want to buy, no. I expect that it, like the original OGL, would produce products that many people who aren't you will want to buy. And a well-supported game has an advantage.

That's what I liked about the OGL - you had a lot of 3PP material out there that you could pick & choose to use. And, it was easy for a DM to say he or she wanted to limit things just to WotC books, plus these other 2/3/4 books.

 

[Dausuul]

The original OGL led to the creation of a ton of really crappy d20 games, but also a number of very innovative ones. I remember one in particular that really struck me as well designed; it was called Iron Heroes. Hey, whatever happened to the guy who made that game? I remember he moved on to work at some other game company... can't remember which.

 

[Plageman]

I guess that -if- we get a 5E OGL we won't get as much crap as we got in the early 2000.

I mean back then the PDF publishing was in its infancy and thus we saw a lot of crappy -printed- products on the store shelves creating a shelf space issue for the store. Nowadays most of the least interesting products starts and die as completely electronic products.

Also I think that publishers have learned their lesson and we'll not have successful RPG lines forced into the 5E system.

No the real risk is to have a situation where a small publisher will have to choose to support either Pathfinder or 5E due to development time constraints. Even for bigger edition houses like Kobold Press they are so much into Pathfinder now that supporting a new edition of the game will be complicated. Obviously they have big backlog catalogue that they won't be able to sell to 5E enthusiasts plus they'll have to double the workload to offer the same products to two distinct crowds without being sure of doubling the income.

 

[Scorpio616]

They definitely should wait for all the books to be out before opening any floodgates. There was such awful crap thanks to the Race to Market offerings in the 3.0 era.

The original OGL led to the creation of a ton of really crappy d20 games, but also a number of very innovative ones. I remember one in particular that really struck me as well designed; it was called Iron Heroes.

Well Designed? It had some excellent concepts and ideas, but IMHO the implementation had some major issues.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I think that a game license that would permit anyone to produce digital product, but require a negotiated license with WOTC for print product would probably be the best for all involved. It would certainly be easier on brick and mortar game stores who probably would be very wary of third party product after the D20 glut and crash around 2003.