# D&D General Why Open Gaming Is Important



## Reynard

NOTE: This is not a thread to argue about, or even really discuss, the OGL 1.1.

This thread is about why Open Gaming is important. More specifically, it is a thread about why we, individually, feel it is important. Folks are free to debate however they like about the "whys" and it is even okay to debate if it is, as long as we do so respectfully.

For my part, Open Gaming fulfills the ultimate promise of D&D and tabletop RPGs in general: they are products of imagination that are ultimately egalitarian. Everyone can play D&D, even if they can't afford rule books. More importantly, everyone can make D&D -- for their friends, for their fellow gamers, and for the world. All you need is a cool idea and the will to mold that idea into a form usable by others.

Remember the initial d20 glut? I do. Sure, there was a lot of shovelware at that time, companies jumping on the bandwagon for those d20 dollars. But there was also a whole lot of labors of love. There were campaign settings and house rule documents that had been developing for literal decades turned into books you could buy. Mostly terrible books, mind you, but that's not the point. Everyone is bad at art when they first try.

The best part was that in general, the good ideas won out. A lot of stuff got buried of course, but what became popular wasn't necessarily pre-destined by the wallets of the companies putting it out.

I never got in a position to make a living off writing OGL material, but I have enjoyed a nice freelance career at least half fueled in one form or another by Open Gaming. A lot of people got to live their dream of "writing D&D" because of Open Gaming -- some of them writing for actual D&D. Our work has been seen by more eyes than we could have likely hoped otherwise. Tt's been good. It's been rewarding.


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## Reynard

Another reason it is important is that it widens the tent. A lot more people can share the community of being "D&D players" with a healthy Open Gaming ecosystem.


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## payn

More options for players, creators, etc...


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## Dausuul

Another benefit is that it creates a talent pool where aspiring designers can prove themselves. This allows the big dogs in the TTRPG industry -- very much including WotC, the resident Clifford -- to recruit people with design chops relevant to the type of game they're designing.

Look at 5E. Both of the lead designers, Jeremy Crawford and Mike Mearls, came up through the OGL universe -- Green Ronin for Crawford, Malhavoc Press for Mearls. Two of the other people on the design team also came up through Green Ronin. The most successful edition of D&D ever created was made possible by the OGL.


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## aco175

The original intent and documents did open the gates for new people and new ideas.  I read on another thread that it allowed for every game to use the same mechanics that everyone can relate to, and thus allow all companies to grow.  This worked if you were making a D&D game or Star Wars, or some of the others with the d20 mechanic.  

Is is still as important today as to 20 years ago?  Not sure.  The rise of the internet to what it is now and the amount of sites with stuff for your game is almost too vast.  Each game and company is trying to claim a share of the pie, but is the pie all from the openness?  Maybe.


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## Alzrius

I love the fact that my game of choice (Pathfinder 1st Edition) is still receiving new, quality material from an array of publishers. Before the OGL, if your favorite game stopped being produced, you might find some fansites with homebrew content, but that was it. I don't want to go back to those days.


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## Vaalingrade

Open Source, whether it be in gaming or software, is equivalent to Standardized Parts: they mean people can innovate where it matters instead of of building an all-new base from scratch every time. Otherwise, the first person to make the most workable base becomes an obstruction to everyone else.


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## Art Waring

The concept of open gaming allowed for the cross-pollination of ideas in a way that promoted innovation within the d20 ruleset.

Homebrewers modding games are a good sign of a games health. When modders leave games they wither and die.


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## Clint_L

Hmmm...I don't know what I think about open gaming's importance.

On the one hand, it allows a commercial avenue for those who love doing what many of us have loved doing from the beginnings of this game: modding it to our own purposes. For example, I am currently working out how to fuse D&D with _Fiasco_ to try to create a D&D game in which everyone is the DM. OGL has given us a huge number of resources for D&D, most of them niche products that would never have been made by WotC.

On the other hand, it might have led to a homogenization of the RPG industry, so that instead of creating something truly original, many creators may have stuck to the (previous) security of the D&D ecosystem. This is kind of what the OGL was intended to do: push the idea of D&D as a kind of OS for RPGs in general. I don't think I love that. But then, maybe I do love that it is so easy to wrap my head around all these niche games that are essentially D&D.

Yeah, I'm not sure where I come out on open gaming. It can be seen as a kind of gaming culture colonialism.

If the furor around OGL 1.1 drives a lot of creative folks away from making another D&D setting or clone...might that not be healthy for RPGs in the long run?

Edit: I write this as a fan of D&D. I'm not saying D&D is bad. I'm just saying that not everything has to be D&D.


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## payn

Clint_L said:


> If the furor around OGL 1.1 drives a lot of creative folks away from making another D&D setting or clone...might that not be healthy for RPGs in the long run?



I think that OGL has been so popular and useful for 20 years demonstrates that there is a certain level of existence that relies on it being a thing. The fact that nothing other than PF is even comparable shows the market cant really support numerous D&Ds.


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## Oofta

While I empathize with people who feel threatened, I simply don't really use much 3PP stuff other than the occasional PDF from DmsGuild which is under a different contract so will be unaffected.  So it really doesn't matter to me.

For that matter, most people I've gamed with over the course of multiple editions don't really use 3PP stuff.  I'd likely enjoy other games and genres, but my wife has no interest in learning new games or systems.  In addition the game system enables play, it doesn't define my enjoyment of playing an RPG.  If the OGL had never been created there are a couple of books gathering dust on my bookshelf, but otherwise it wouldn't impact me in the least.

I think most people who play D&D are in the same boat, I don't think the people on this forum are representative.  I'm not saying the OGL 1.0 was good or bad, I think there likely could have been more innovation in games if it had not been created.  I also think PF, by way of challenging D&D's dominance was actually good for D&D - at least it was for me.  But most people? I suspect most people won't know or care if there is never another 3PP addition to D&D ever again.  

So it's not that I don't care, but if I were blissfully unaware of the issues it would have never impacted my gaming one way or another.


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## Clint_L

I agree that PF was good for D&D...because it was just more D&D. Its success has helped solidify D&D as _the_ way to play an RPG. It was the ultimate proof of concept for the OGL as a way of colonizing the RPG space with ever more D&D.

I have bought a few things that only happened because of the OGL (I bought the Tal'Dorei setting a few months back, for example), but my non-D&D RPG dollars tend to go to products that are as far from D&D as I can get. So I wasn't a huge fan of the OGL to begin with - I didn't dislike it, and I'm glad that folks were able to make money off it - I'd rather see a small Kickstarter get money than Hasbro. And ultimately, I do think D&D's absolute dominance in recent years is a net gain for humanity, because I think gaming in general and RPGs in particular are good and everyone should do them. But the homogenization arguably caused by the OGL hasn't been my favourite thing.

So I look at what is happening now, and it seems to me that Hasbro is basically just acting like corporations act. I don't think they are being particularly villainous any more than all corporations are villainous, from a lot of perspectives. And I hope that as a result of their actions, instead of suckling at the OGL teat, content creators are able to make their own thing and be independently successful.

But then I recognize that this is aspirational thinking, probably pollyanna-ish, and what is really likely to happen is that folks will lose some or all of their income.


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## Umbran

Oofta said:


> But most people? I suspect most people won't know or care if there is never another 3PP addition to D&D ever again.




Whether you are aware of something doesn't determine if that thing has impact upon you.  Whether or not you use a thing personally, doesn't determine if it is good for your situation that it exists.


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## TheAlkaizer

I think open-gaming is important because it opens the door and democratizes access to creation to other type of individuals, with different ideas. Individuals that probably wouldn't have their place in businesses that _must_ make money to keep doing. These independent developers are an important part of an healthy ecosystem and they have an offer that's very different.

A lot of small products would not be viable in a business-oriented (we have employees and must pay them) world. But the fact that licenses, frameworks, tools and distribution methods allow these products to exist if very valuable. The same way that big video game development companies will rarely do risky projects to please shareholders or keep up with inflating salaries; but that independent developers will come up with the most crazy, fun and exciting ideas. They're the avant-garde and the engine of innovation.

It opens a whole other slice of a creative industry.


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## Cadence

I liked it for the dream that I might some day actually put together a heart-breaker using parts of the things I've seen and be able to share it without worry.  And if it was popular maybe even get others to download a copy and build on it.  Maybe half of the game books I've bought over the past decade and a half were for feeding that dream.

I like it for seeing others follow their dreams (and actually get them in to print!).

Could do the same with making  one's own system entirely from scratch, but that seems like a ton more work on the less fun parts... and there is something nice about being tied into the whole.


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## Oofta

Umbran said:


> Whether you are aware of something doesn't determine if that thing has impact upon you.  Whether or not you use a thing personally, doesn't determine if it is good for your situation that it exists.



If the OGL had never been released no one has any idea what impact it would have had on TTRPGs.  You can speculate how things would have been different, but we simply don't know.  Good? Bad?  No clue.

All I'm pointing out is that people on this forum are not, in my experience, typical D&D players.  Most people would not know Kobold press's Tome of Beasts from the Monster Manual.  Obviously it will have negative impact on many people if it's implemented, I'm just not sure how widespread that impact will be.  In a year we can do a post-mortem on impact, speculation on the impact for the general D&D audience is premature.


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## Grendel_Khan

Seems a little odd to me to frame the idea (and celebration) of open gaming only in the context of D&D. Open gaming in general seems irrefutably awesome. But the fact that there are lots of open SRDs and such out there for a ton of interesting games, and here we are, as usual, talking about open gaming as "making D&D?" That's a bummer.


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## payn

Oofta said:


> If the OGL had never been released no one has any idea what impact it would have had on TTRPGs.  You can speculate how things would have been different, but we simply don't know.  Good? Bad?  No clue.
> 
> All I'm pointing out is that people on this forum are not, in my experience, typical D&D players.  Most people would not know Kobold press's Tome of Beasts from the Monster Manual.  Obviously it will have negative impact on many people if it's implemented, I'm just not sure how widespread that impact will be.  In a year we can do a post-mortem on impact, speculation on the impact for the general D&D audience is premature.



So, because they creators are not widely popular it doesn't matter what happens to them? Nice.


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## Oofta

payn said:


> So, because they creators are not widely popular it doesn't matter what happens to them? Nice.




That is not at all what I said.  I was only talking about the consumer side of things, not the producer side.  I empathize with the producers as I stated upthread.  

Open gaming matters to the people that produce open game content.  Most people who play the game don't really care who produces their game as long as they have a game they can enjoy.  Don't twist my words into something I did not say.


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## payn

Oofta said:


> That is not at all what I said.  I was only talking about the consumer side of things, not the producer side.  I empathize with the producers as I stated upthread.
> 
> Open gaming matters to the people that produce open game content.  Most people who play the game don't really care who produces their game as long as they have a game they can enjoy.  Don't twist my words into something I did not say.



How exactly is that not one in the same?


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## Art Waring

Oofta said:


> Open gaming matters to the people that produce open game content. Most people who play the game don't really care who produces their game as long as they have a game they can enjoy. Don't twist my words into something I did not say.



You are conflating your own opinions with "most people."

Just because you don't have the opinion that this affects people doesn't mean that it doesn't.

The #OpenDnD petition currently has over 26,000 signatures as of today, including industry luminaries like Owen K.C. Stephens.

That's over ten thousand signatures per day, two consecutive days in a row.

People have noticed, and lots of people, not just the 3pp's are not happy with the state of affairs.


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## Reynard

Art Waring said:


> You are conflating your own opinions with "most people."
> 
> Just because you don't have the opinion that this affects people doesn't mean that it doesn't.
> 
> The #OpenDnD petition currently has over 26,000 signatures as of today, including industry luminaries like Owen K.C. Stephens.
> 
> That's over ten thousand signatures per day, two consecutive days in a row.
> 
> People have noticed, and lost of people, not just the 3pp's are not happy with the state of affairs.



How many copies of the 5E PHB do you think WotC has sold?


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## Art Waring

Reynard said:


> How many copies of the 5E PHB do you think WotC has sold?



I'm not talking about total units sold, I'm talking about the general response to the 1.1 OGL, across the entire internet, most people are both aware and not happy about it. 

Look at youtube, look at twitter, look at facebook, look at discord servers, look at forums, look at the news articles being released.

Don't worry, you can keep defending wotc all you like, I'm not going to argue with you.


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## Reynard

Art Waring said:


> I'm not talking about total units sold, I'm talking about the general response to the 1.1 OGL, across the entire internet, most people are both aware and not happy about it.
> 
> *Look at youtube, look at twitter, look at facebook, look at discord servers, look at forums, look at the news articles being released.*



The worst thing modern media algorithms have done is give us the false sense that out opinions are widely held and supported, causing us to double down when we should be looking at things critically.


Art Waring said:


> Don't worry, you can keep defending wotc all you like, I'm not going to argue with you.



Are you serious? What in the world would make you think I was defending WotC in this circumstance?


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## Oofta

Reynard said:


> How many copies of the 5E PHB do you think WotC has sold?




Based on sales estimates Amazon alone likely sold 22k in just the month of December.


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## Velderan

It's been mentioned in other threads, but WotC has also benefitted from the OGL due to it leading to the creation of 3pp to develop talent that they've gone on to hire. Dan Dillon came over from Kobold Press, F. Wesley Schneider worked at Paizo. I'm sure there's other examples, but the existence of these other companies has definitely had benefits to WotC.


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## Art Waring

Reynard said:


> The worst thing modern media algorithms have done is give us the false sense that out opinions are widely held and supported, causing us to double down when we should be looking at things critically.
> 
> Are you serious? What in the world would make you think I was defending WotC in this circumstance?



Apologies if I misunderstood, its been a rough week over here.


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## Oofta

payn said:


> How exactly is that not one in the same?



How are they at all the same?  If the draft copy of the new OGL is released most people who play the game will be unaffected. People who  depend on the OGL will be dramatically affected, assuming it's a legally enforceable change which is open to debate.

I get it.  You don't like the potential change.  But most people?  Most people don't know or care where the products we use every day come from.  Even if people do learn about the change to the OGL, I believe most people will just continue to play the game because they enjoy it.  Many will be surprised that there ever was an OGL.  I am not making any judgement call on whether the OGL was a good idea or not, I just think the reality is that most people will not care if it goes away.


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## Arilyn

Getting away from D&D, PbtA is an example of a system that has given us a multitude of games. It doesn't use the OGL to be open but the idea of open gaming in rpgs grew from the OGL, I believe. So even if the OGL is killed and we no longer have an open D&D environment, open gaming is still with us. Without D&D, it will be much smaller and I am certainly not downplaying the potential loss of livelihood of 3pp but open gaming will not die. And I hope that in the future, WotC/Hasbro learns that their walled garden may be very pretty and tame, but ultimately dull, and people quit paying to walk through the gate.


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## Desdichado

I'm not 100% sure that it is. D&D and the RPG industry thrived for years without an Open Gaming paradigm throughout the 80s and 90s. It was different than it had been in the last few years, but it was a successful model nonetheless.


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## Reynard

Arilyn said:


> Getting away from D&D, PbtA is an example of a system that has given us a multitude of games. It doesn't use the OGL to be open but the idea of open gaming in rpgs grew from the OGL, I believe. So even if the OGL is killed and we no longer have an open D&D environment, open gaming is still with us. Without D&D, it will be much smaller and I am certainly not downplaying the potential loss of livelihood of 3pp but open gaming will not die. And I hope that in the future, WotC/Hasbro learns that their walled garden may be very pretty and tame, but ultimately dull, and people quit paying to walk through the gate.



it pretty apparent that their allowing people to do whatever without any sort of license has lead to the huge amount of innovation in that space.


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## payn

Desdichado said:


> I'm not 100% sure that it is. D&D and the RPG industry thrived for years without an Open Gaming paradigm throughout the 80s and 90s. It was different than it had been in the last few years, but it was a successful model nonetheless.



Wasnt the 90's not so successful for D&D?


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## eyeheartawk

payn said:


> Wasnt the 90's not so successful for D&D?



Mostly through self-owns though, right?

If they hadn't overprinted product, went all in on fiction and getting murdered by the bookstore returns and also fleecing the company for the family owned Buck Rogers stuff they probably would have been fine?


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## Desdichado

payn said:


> Wasnt the 90's not so successful for D&D?



But the INDUSTRY was fine. Not exactly my point, but a good side effect nonetheless.


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## Reynard

Desdichado said:


> But the INDUSTRY was fine. Not exactly my point, but a good side effect nonetheless.



Briefly. White Wolf had a moment.
Then MtG came along and obliterated tabletop RPGs and killed many, many stores.


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## payn

Desdichado said:


> But the INDUSTRY was fine. Not exactly my point, but a good side effect nonetheless.



The industry will always be "fine" being that it will always exist. Though, the OGL was created because of how things were going at the time.


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## Oofta

eyeheartawk said:


> Mostly through self-owns though, right?
> 
> If they hadn't overprinted product, went all in on fiction and getting murdered by the bookstore returns and also fleecing the company for the family owned Buck Rogers stuff they probably would have been fine?



There were many, many issues with TSR management.


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## TwoSix

payn said:


> How exactly is that not one in the same?



It can be objectively true that most people won’t notice or care while still being morally wrong that most people won’t notice or care.

@Oofta is certainly correct to point that a large fraction of the D&D player base will only see a minimal impact from these changes.  That doesn’t lessen the impact to those that are affected, of course, but it helps give context as to why WotC may pursue such a course.


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## Oofta

TwoSix said:


> It can be objectively true that most people won’t notice or care while still being morally wrong that most people won’t notice or care.
> 
> @Oofta is certainly correct to point that a large fraction of the D&D player base will only see a minimal impact from these changes.  That doesn’t lessen the impact to those that are affected, of course, but it helps give context as to why WotC may pursue such a course.




I am also not giving WOTC a free pass.  After reading what actual lawyers have to say, I don't think WOTC can legally revoke the OGL 1.0a.  However some of the things people have been saying (i.e. "The Critical Role stream is dead!"*, "The _only_ reason WOTC is making a new edition is because they wanted to force DndBeyond to sell!", "All VTTs will be shut down immediately!") seem to be overblown.  So it's hard to tell what the real impact will be or what the reasoning behind it was.  

_Should_ companies like Kobold Press pay some amount of money for profiting from WOTC's IP?  I kind of think they should be, even if the current amount in the leaked document is far too steep, along with other issues.  Do I think this is a _good _idea?  I have no clue what the long term impact will actually be. I think a better option would have been to open up DndBeyond to sell 3PP products for a reasonable licensing fee, along with direct integration with VTTs.  But I'm not talking about any of that, I don't feel qualified.

If all 3rd party products were taking off the market tomorrow it would not affect me personally.  It wouldn't affect the Thursday game I play in.  Over the past several decades I have never been part of a campaign that relied on 3rd party books other than an occasional monster here and there.  When people are not directly impacted by something unless it's especially egregious such as Nike using child labor in sweatshops most people simply don't care.  

If the law is enforceable, it will harm many people's livelihood.  I just don't think it's going to have a major impact on sales.

_*Streams are not and never have been covered under the OGL.  Darrington Press that publishes some of the Tal'Dorei campaign books could be affected of course._


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## Dausuul

Velderan said:


> It's been mentioned in other threads, but WotC has also benefitted from the OGL due to it leading to the creation of 3pp to develop talent that they've gone on to hire. Dan Dillon came over from Kobold Press, F. Wesley Schneider worked at Paizo. I'm sure there's other examples, but the existence of these other companies has definitely had benefits to WotC.



Mike Mearls was hired after creating Iron Heroes with Malhavoc Press. Jeremy Crawford came from Green Ronin.

That would be 100% of the lead designers for 5E.


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## Velderan

Oofta said:


> I think a better option would have been to open up DndBeyond to sell 3PP products for a reasonable licensing fee, along with direct integration with VTTs.



The biggest item on my wishlist of things I wanted to see WotC do with DDB after buying them was somehow merge the DMG content into DDB and allow people to easily integrate DMG purchases into their DDB campaigns. I've no doubt this would have been complicated if they wanted to maintain the POD features of OBS but I like to think there would be a way somehow.


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