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The Moral of the Story Is....Maybe there's such a thing as (D&D being) too big
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8902638" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>To be perfectly honest, I kind of wish people would stop talking about whether or not D&D will survive. Of course it will! Hasbro won't let their second-biggest (after Magic: the Gathering) cash cow die easily, no matter how many self-inflicted wounds they suffer, and while the pushback from gamers everywhere against what they're doing with regard to the OGL (and potentially D&D Beyond as well) is both inspiring and heartening, it's never going to come close to killing off the game altogether.</p><p></p><p>What <em>might</em> be killed off are <em>other</em> games that relies on the OGL for theirexistence, if WotC pushes through their plan to "de-authorize" the OGL v1.0a. The very fact that they're able to cause so much fear, doubt, and uncertainty about the continued usage of the existing license has already caused a lot of smaller publishers to rethink their plans, which means that fans of those OGL games are faced with the very real possibility that they'll see no more (or at least markedly fewer) products published for the system(s) they love.</p><p></p><p>And while some of those systems <em>might</em> get a new SRD under Paizo's ORC License, not all of them will. While games that are designed from scratch can conceivably be re-released under the ORC License, that's probably not going to be the case for games whose publishers have since closed their doors (and so aren't around to release a new SRD under the ORC License) or are based off of the 3.5 or 5E SRDs. So if you're a fan of <em>Mutants and Masterminds</em>, for instance, then you might very well not see any more M&M products from third-party publishers (which have been coming out <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/423679/Super-Powered-Legends-The-Saurian" target="_blank">as recently as today</a>) because those publishers are wary of the OGL v1.0a going away, and Green Ronin couldn't release the game (as it's based on the 3.5 SRD) under the ORC License.</p><p></p><p>The OSR, I suspect, is particularly vulnerable to this.</p><p></p><p>Now, ideally, WotC will back off and/or we'll get a court ruling that the OGL v1.0a cannot be revoked. Maybe we'll even see a miracle occur and (some portion of) the current OGL's Open Game Content will be usable via the ORC License. But at the very least, third-parties who published material for OGL games have been given a serious scare, and many will look toward safer pastures in which to publish their products. D&D will continue, but smaller OGL games will likely see a downshift, perhaps a massive one, in how much content is made for them.</p><p></p><p>To me, that's the real loss here. Not what happens to D&D and its surrounding 5E ecosystem of products, but the smaller games which required the OGL to survive. Even if this isn't a fatal blow, it's likely to deal them harm which they may never fully recover from.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8902638, member: 8461"] To be perfectly honest, I kind of wish people would stop talking about whether or not D&D will survive. Of course it will! Hasbro won't let their second-biggest (after Magic: the Gathering) cash cow die easily, no matter how many self-inflicted wounds they suffer, and while the pushback from gamers everywhere against what they're doing with regard to the OGL (and potentially D&D Beyond as well) is both inspiring and heartening, it's never going to come close to killing off the game altogether. What [i]might[/i] be killed off are [i]other[/i] games that relies on the OGL for theirexistence, if WotC pushes through their plan to "de-authorize" the OGL v1.0a. The very fact that they're able to cause so much fear, doubt, and uncertainty about the continued usage of the existing license has already caused a lot of smaller publishers to rethink their plans, which means that fans of those OGL games are faced with the very real possibility that they'll see no more (or at least markedly fewer) products published for the system(s) they love. And while some of those systems [i]might[/i] get a new SRD under Paizo's ORC License, not all of them will. While games that are designed from scratch can conceivably be re-released under the ORC License, that's probably not going to be the case for games whose publishers have since closed their doors (and so aren't around to release a new SRD under the ORC License) or are based off of the 3.5 or 5E SRDs. So if you're a fan of [i]Mutants and Masterminds[/i], for instance, then you might very well not see any more M&M products from third-party publishers (which have been coming out [url=https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/423679/Super-Powered-Legends-The-Saurian]as recently as today[/url]) because those publishers are wary of the OGL v1.0a going away, and Green Ronin couldn't release the game (as it's based on the 3.5 SRD) under the ORC License. The OSR, I suspect, is particularly vulnerable to this. Now, ideally, WotC will back off and/or we'll get a court ruling that the OGL v1.0a cannot be revoked. Maybe we'll even see a miracle occur and (some portion of) the current OGL's Open Game Content will be usable via the ORC License. But at the very least, third-parties who published material for OGL games have been given a serious scare, and many will look toward safer pastures in which to publish their products. D&D will continue, but smaller OGL games will likely see a downshift, perhaps a massive one, in how much content is made for them. To me, that's the real loss here. Not what happens to D&D and its surrounding 5E ecosystem of products, but the smaller games which required the OGL to survive. Even if this isn't a fatal blow, it's likely to deal them harm which they may never fully recover from. [/QUOTE]
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