The Open Gaming License: Almost 10 Years Later

[Garnfellow]

First there were rumors.

And they didn't make much sense.

Wizards was going to give away its IP? To anyone? How can you make money off that model?

I think the first real chunk of info came in an interview Ryan Dancey gave to EN World back on March 19, 2000. (Thank Pelor for the Internet Archives.)

Even after I read it, though, I'm not sure I really understood what the OGL/d20 licenses were all about.

A few weeks later a Salon.com article, "Opening the Dungeon," finally opened my eyes to what was happening.

It's pretty interesting to read this stuff now. I remember that it seemed like a really risky move at the time, but I had forgotten how much trepidation 3PPs had at the announcement. I has also forgotten how toxic TSR's online presence had become before the WotC buyout, and that the OGL was seen by some as a way to repair that situation.

Some of the goals mentioned back then never really came to pass, but it's hard to deny that the OGL and d20 license ended up having an enormous impact on the hobby. And IMHO, a generally positive impact.

 

[pawsplay]

Considering 3e's basically spectacular success, something obviously worked. Although 3pp products may have been on the fringes, I think that's a big part of what nurtured the D&D community, especially the online community.

 

[Ahnehnois]

It was a bold move, to be sure. Thank you in retrospect to whoever made it.

I don't know what gaming was before the hypertext SRD, but I can't imagine gaming without it. 3PPs are a mixed bag of course, but the cream rises to the top, so much good has come of them as well.

 

[jamorea]

Yeah, that is pretty interesting. I forgot about any controversy or the WOTC higher ups not getting behind it right away. I guess the GSL shouldn't have been such a surprise to me.

He said in the interview that the core book (as far as sales) is the PHB and now they're publishing one a year for 4E. 4E sounds pretty profitable with a PHB, DMG and MM every year (so far) and the everything is core philosophy. With DDI, WOTC must be in heaven.

I don't buy the "Skaff Effect". I know I started with D&D and then moved to other systems. I certainly wasn't playing D&D in the early 90s. I didn't really come back to D&D until 3rd Edition. My group is currently moving away from D&D to other systems.

Fuzion and FUDGE don't seem that huge. I'm not aware of them at least. Did they ever take off? Dominion Games, mentioned in the interview, doesn't even look like it's around anymore.

There was a blog from written by a guy running/working in a game store. I think he had WTOC D&D products doing 75% of the sales at one point and doing 55% currently. It's really hard to argue with that market share (even anecdotally). I wish we had some data like that for the 3E era to compare.

Anyway, thanks for sharing.

 

[Stalker0]

The OGL definitely spured greater advancements in game mechanics, of that I have no doubt.

Ultimately, my question is whether it was actually good for WOTC at large.

If your goal is technical advancement, open source can be a great way to do it. If your goal is profit, it can be counterproductive.

Currently, 4e faces a direct competitor in Pathfinder, which was born out of the OGL. I'm curious to know if open source really did bring in more profit more WOTC, or if ultimately it left them wtih less.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

The OGL is and was a cynical attempt to get people to curtail their rights to copy game rules wily-nilly. It did provide a safe harbor, but it was superfluous.\\

D20 STL was significant though.

 

[Angellis_ater]

Currently, 4e faces a direct competitor in Pathfinder, which was born out of the OGL. I'm curious to know if open source really did bring in more profit more WOTC, or if ultimately it left them wtih less.

To be entirely correct, Pathfinder was born out of the GSL - its delays and hardnosed first draft more or less forced Paizo to either close down or to find another way.

As has been pointed out before, game rules cannot per se be copyrighted so Paizo could've easily gone ahead and defined their entirely own system based almost wholesale on the D20 mechanics and still be fine. Now they took different paths, made different choices - including using and building off the OGL - which brought with it a number of other benefits (being viewed as a successor-game, bringing over OGL supporters both in terms of customers as well as companies).

 

[Dice4Hire]

I'm still convinced that it was very god thing for D&D. Yes, I used almost no 3PP in the 3.x years, but I know there were a lot of great things out there, and that was a very good thing for the hobby.

Maybe games like C&C, or other d20 games could have been made without the licence, but the licence helped make it a lot easier. I liked seeing the innovation, and wish 4E had more of it.

 

[Dausuul]

The OGL is and was a cynical attempt to get people to curtail their rights to copy game rules wily-nilly. It did provide a safe harbor, but it was superfluous.

Not entirely. The OGL did enable you to copy the exact text of the PHB, which would otherwise have been protected by copyright - handy for people wanting to make D&D variants. And safe harbor is something whose value should not be underestimated to RPG designers who aren't IP lawyers.

If you were talking about the GSL, I'd be much more inclined to agree with you.

 

[JohnRTroy]

The OGL definitely spured greater advancements in game mechanics, of that I have no doubt.

I doubt it very much. Most of the real innovations in game mechanics usually came from games competing with D&D. Things like Amber, Nobilis, did a lot more for this hobby in terms of experimentation, as well as development of computer and card games.

All the OGL did was allow a little bit of tinkering to the D&D core ruleset without legal repercussion. IMO, it made people lazy, you only had to tinker a little bit rather than create something new. There's been less innovation in the game industry over the past decade because most people took the easy way out and made D&D clones. Now, I'm hoping we see more game companies make widely different games.