We All Won – The OGL Three Years Later

[Johnsy]

We're in the best time in RPGs that I can remember. There are way more games and way more worlds than we can ever play, which might be its own problem. We all won. RPGs are great.

I think your whole post is a fair, thoughtful and optimistic take. That’s what I enjoy about your perspective. Looking forward to the show, Mike.

 

[aco175]

If we all won, does it also mean we all lost.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Definitely some of those games would have come out anyway -- Kelsey Dionne was working on Shadowdark before the OGL mess happened, although I admit that I mostly ignored it when buying her excellent 5E adventures off her site. But the crisis was definitely a moment where I think a large plurality of D&D players were incentivized to look at what else was available (both Pathfinder and Dungeon Crawl Classics had to scramble to keep up with demand, for instance).

I agree that things are healthier overall in the RPG hobby than they probably have ever been. This probably makes one faction inside Hasbro unhappy, who want the market to be 100% them, but the other folks inside -- the folks who appear to have won the internal battle -- are probably delighted.

Leaving aside DDB, I think WotC will also benefit from more designers trying more things in the RPG space, because ultimately -- as we've recently seen -- they're going to scoop up a cohort of those designers to do stuff for them in future. So even people who don't care about anything other than D&D-branded RPGs will benefit from the third party stuff in the long run. (This is an old phenomenon, of course, especially in the 21st century. Recent events just accelerated the process and expanded the number of designers out there.)

 

[Gladius Legis]

IMO, anyone who trust WoTC at this point in time, is setting themselves up to be screwed.

Still better than trusting AI.

 

[Maxperson]

Gen Con 2025 Events

Blade Runner doesn't even make the top 10 in number of events there, let alone sit in the 3rd spot.

 

[cranberry]

Still better than trusting AI.

I only cared about the first two results, and they were accurate.

 

[Morrus]

I only cared about the first two results, and they were accurate.

If the AI had told you that Honey Heist was the #2 RPG would you have still posted it?

 

[cranberry]

Blade Runner doesn't even make the top 10 in number of events there, let alone sit in the 3rd spot.

Right, I was originally responding to someone who said everyone is trying to be number two. I think it's pretty clear who number two is, and just how far they'd have to go get to get there.

 

[cranberry]

If the AI had told you that Honey Heist was the #2 RPG would you have still posted it?

No, everyone knows number two. I would have found an alternative source. I've seen AI hallucinate answers before, but I figured this wasn't something it would need to make stuff up about. And honestly, I didn't care about anything after 2.

Also, I was being honest about the source. I've seen people post huge bullet point lists of information and represent it as their own.

 

[Morrus]

No, everyone knows number two. I would have found an alternative source. I've seen AI hallucinate answers before, but I figured this wasn't something it would need to make stuff up about. And honestly, I didn't care about anything after 2.

So why bother using AI then? Why not just “everybody knows”. Your personal experience is only anecdotal, but it’s still a more credible source than AI. That list undermines your point, as it’s so obviously nonsense. No list would have been far more convincing.

(I just asked ChatGPT and got an entirely different list)