COMING SOON! -- Archetype Anthology: A Dozen Archetypes for D&D 5th Edition on Kickstarter! From dual-wielding tempests to planar explorers -- a softcover collection of new archetypes for your 5th Edition game!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 8061209" data-attributes="member: 14159">While the downside is that it can make life rough on people who are striving to make a living by selling 3rd party D&D material, I think a bit of historic context is needed on what the OGL has done for the game.Remember in the 1990's, TSR was extremely hostile to any 3rd party creator, even sending cease and desist letters to small-time web hosts because of small fan pages posting some new spells or new monsters, or a homebrew campaign setting.  TSR made it very clear to D&D fans that they felt fans had no right to create and distribute new material for personal use for free, much less selling anything.  In addition to this, shortly before the WotC buyout of TSR, there was a very real danger of D&D going out of print.  TSR was on the brink of complete financial collapse, they couldn't afford to print more books, and there was a very real chance that in their bankruptcy and collapse that D&D as we knew it would just plain cease to exist.  The WotC buyout prevented that, but D&D itself was indeed on the brink of oblivion for a while.The OGL addressed both of those problems.  It put the rules of D&D out there in the open in an open license for perpetuity, and provided a strong, legally protected way for fans to create and share material. . .but on top of that it even allowed 3rd party products that were compatible with D&D (even if they couldn't use the name, although the now-defunct d20 System Trademark License did allow a way at the time to signal compatibility).Even if somehow, some way, Hasbro discontinued D&D, then the fundamental system itself if out there (in both the 3e/3.5e and 5e variants, as well as the d20 Modern spin-off game) were put out there by WotC under the OGL. . .and as was noted, thanks to the abundant wealth of OGC out there already, there's a sea of options enough for many lifetimes of gaming.  That kind of immortality would have been unthinkable, if not outright mythical, in the 1990's.While 3rd party creators may struggle to make ends meet in this system, without it they wouldn't be allowed into the market at all, and would be dealing with a hostile legal department from Hasbro.</blockquote>

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