Amazing that Dancey was able to pull off the OGL in the first place.

I argued a bit with Mr Dancey when 3.0 first came out over a number of topics, but after my initial confusion regarding the OGL, I have to agree it turned out well in the end.

Wotc's biggest mistake (and they have made a lot of them) wasn't the OGL, it was fumbling the GSL for 4e and driving Paizo from being their partner in promoting 4e to being a direct competitor.

Quote from: SunBoy;321325My thoughts exactly.

Same here. I don't think much of the notion that Paizo did "very, very little work" compared to WotC, simply because they declined to remake the game from the ground up.

Quote from: Spinachcat;321361No, that was the D20 license.   That was brilliant and that should have been redone for 4e instead of the pathetic GSL.    

The OGL was fucking retarded and now they are paying for their boneheaded mistake.   Paizo are sharp guys with marketing savvy so the OGL mistake is going to bleed WotC even more.

I think I see what you mean - the OGL was a mistake for WotC, in that it allowed competitors to step up and compete with WotC's own game. In that respect, I can agree it was a mistake for WotC. However, in the respect that it encouraged the creation of new games and game companies, and seems to have infused some vitality into the RPG industry, it was a brilliant move.

Quote from: mhensley;321406Wotc's biggest mistake (and they have made a lot of them) wasn't the OGL, it was fumbling the GSL for 4e and driving Paizo from being their partner in promoting 4e to being a direct competitor.

EXACTLY what I thought. Thank you!

The OGL wasn't the mistake. Repudiating the OGL via 4e was.

Ryan Dancey is a genius, and one of the few people who tends to "get it" in the industry today, though he is more pessimistic than I am about the industry's future.

RPGPundit

And no, the GSL wasn't a mistake. 4e was a mistake. Lying to customers was a mistake. Putting a suicidal-homicidal psychopath in charge of the Virtual Tabletop was a mistake.  Apparently putting a gang of retarded 4-year olds in charge of marketing was a mistake.

The OGL? Marketing Genius that assured that so significant competitor to D&D's market dominance could emerge for 8 years; only followers.

RPGPundit

Initially, the OGL helped to kill the RPG industry.  I have for a while felt that was a terrible thing - that the glut of bad (and I mean bad) products that were released from 2000 to, say, 2006 wrecked a lot of the industry.

But I'm more circumspect now.  One, the "industry" had a lot of parts that deserved to die, and should've been dead a long time before.  Two, there are people out there who were perhaps laboring under the delusion that just because they thought they had a good game idea, that it'd be a world beater.  Too lazy to come up with a real mechanic for their world beater, they nailed it to the OGL and threw it out on the water...and it sank without a trace.  Good riddance to bad rubbish, and all of that.  Three, it gave rise to OSRIC and S&W and a lot of other good things, without which (thanks to the draconian attitude of WotC towards PDFs) vintage gaming would be stifled these days.

Most importantly to me is number four: I can (even without having to say "OSRIC" or "Swords & Wizardry", although I would as those are powerful branding tools these days) publish and sell AD&D compatible modules.  Not "yes but invert the AC" or "I'll put a conversion of it to AD&D for free on my website" but honest to goodness vintage style AD&D, right out of the box.  That's half the OGL's doing and half Gary's.  The "stat blocks" of G1 are: monster name, number, and hit points.  Period.  He left the rest to the DM.  Following that model, I can publish (and sell!) as much AD&D as I want.

So, yeah, the OGL poisoned off some of the gaming industry, but I don't much care about that anyway, looking at it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;321424Putting a suicidal-homicidal psychopath in charge of the Virtual Tabletop was a mistake.  

Wait, who was this?!

Not that I disbelieve you, mind, I just wanna know who I need to wear a stab vest with trauma plate around if I decide to go to GenCon next year.

Come to think of it, given how I feel about most post 1e D&D and what I've said about it, I should probably just wear that anyway

Quote from: thedungeondelver;321425Too lazy to come up with a real mechanic for their world beater, they nailed it to the OGL and threw it out on the water...

...it gave rise to OSRIC and S&W and a lot of other good things, without which (thanks to the draconian attitude of WotC towards PDFs) vintage gaming would be stifled these days.

Hmm...

Quote from: One Horse Town;321429Hmm...

I know you think you're being clever, but there's no dichotomy here.  Not even if you squint your eyes real hard and try to find one.

:teehee:

Quote from: RPGPundit;3214244e was a mistake.

This is pretty much all I can disagree with in your post, but it's a big disagreement. 4e may not be your cup of tea, and WotC's handling of its marketing was lousy, but it's a playable game, fun for the people with whom I've played, and does things with the d20 system that are interesting. The game shouldn't get a bad rap for the corporate stupidity surrounding it.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;321426Wait, who was this?!

Not that I disbelieve you, mind, I just wanna know who I need to wear a stab vest with trauma plate around if I decide to go to GenCon next year.

Come to think of it, given how I feel about most post 1e D&D and what I've said about it, I should probably just wear that anyway

link

edit : Direct link to news