I am writing to express my displeasure with the Open Gaming License version 1.1, as reported across various media channels. It is my sincere hope that the information currently in the public sphere is somehow flawed. However, your company’s silence in addressing the rumors and reports is deafening. At this point, I can only assume these rumors are accurate, or at least very close.
Please allow me to explain why this OGL change, if accurate, is a bad idea. I understand you came to Wizards of the Coast from Microsoft. At the risk of stating the obvious, a role-playing game is not a computer. In your old business, if I were to buy an iPad, that means I’m not going to buy a Surface. It’s very much a zero-sum calculation. If I win, you lose.
Games don’t work like that. They are not an either/or product; they are a both/and product. If I purchased a copy of, for example, “Strongholds and Followers” from MCDM, that’s not money that I would otherwise have spent on “Dragonlance.” They are different products which serve different purposes in a game. They are not interchangeable. The third-party publisher did not take sales away from you. It’s actually more likely that someone buy both or neither than it is they decide between just one and the other. Moreover, if I did purchase “Strongholds and Followers,” it means I’ve already got a copy of the “Player’s Handbook,” and probably a couple other books printed by your company.
I can understand your frustration with the idea that these third-party companies are piggybacking off of Wizard’s work. They don’t have to spend the time and effort to make, market, distribute and refine the base game – but they do get the benefit of nearly 50 years brand recognition. As they say, you can’t buy that kind of advertising. So yes, some small, reasonable changes to the OGL may be in order. But the steps this version takes go much too far. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t even buy third party products to speak of, but who does want my gamer friends out there to have the options that will make the game fun for them.
I can also understand how frustrating it must be to see a company like Paizo use the existing OGL to make a game that seems to directly compete with your product. Let me assure you, it doesn’t. People who are playing Pathfinder would not otherwise play D&D. The games have similar roots but are radically different in play and appeal to different customers. In fact, D&D players and Pathfinder players have been known to gently (and not so gently) mock each other for their preferred system.
In summation, money people spend on third party games would not otherwise be going to Wizards of the Coast. It might be going to new dice, or snacks, but it was never going to Wizards. And if these OGL changes go through, a lot less money is going to be going to Wizards. You’ve turned off a large portionof the community already and that number is only going to grow. If you’re waiting for it to blow over – if you think we’re just going to forget all this – remember that we memorize the Player’s Handbook for fun. Your customers aren’t the type to forget things.
Please publicly disavow the OGL 1.1 and get to work on a new version that’s fair for everyone. You might be able to rebuild some trust that way. Then, we D&D players can get back to arguing about whether or not we like proposed the changes to the exhaustion rules, what alignment Batman would be, and other things that really matter to us.
I’m sure you won’t read this, but open letters aren’t ever really about the person they’re addressed to.
Sincerely,
Xalthu
P.S. I’ve been playing D&D for 40 years, man. Don’t **** it up!
Dear Dan Rawson,
I am writing to express my displeasure with the Open Gaming License version 1.1, as reported across various media channels. It is my sincere hope that the information currently in the public sphere is somehow flawed. However, your company’s silence in addressing the rumors and reports is deafening. At this point, I can only assume these rumors are accurate, or at least very close.
Please allow me to explain why this OGL change, if accurate, is a bad idea. I understand you came to Wizards of the Coast from Microsoft. At the risk of stating the obvious, a role-playing game is not a computer. In your old business, if I were to buy an iPad, that means I’m not going to buy a Surface. It’s very much a zero-sum calculation. If I win, you lose.
Games don’t work like that. They are not an either/or product; they are a both/and product. If I purchased a copy of, for example, “Strongholds and Followers” from MCDM, that’s not money that I would otherwise have spent on “Dragonlance.” They are different products which serve different purposes in a game. They are not interchangeable. The third-party publisher did not take sales away from you. It’s actually more likely that someone buy both or neither than it is they decide between just one and the other. Moreover, if I did purchase “Strongholds and Followers,” it means I’ve already got a copy of the “Player’s Handbook,” and probably a couple other books printed by your company.
I can understand your frustration with the idea that these third-party companies are piggybacking off of Wizard’s work. They don’t have to spend the time and effort to make, market, distribute and refine the base game – but they do get the benefit of nearly 50 years brand recognition. As they say, you can’t buy that kind of advertising. So yes, some small, reasonable changes to the OGL may be in order. But the steps this version takes go much too far. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t even buy third party products to speak of, but who does want my gamer friends out there to have the options that will make the game fun for them.
I can also understand how frustrating it must be to see a company like Paizo use the existing OGL to make a game that seems to directly compete with your product. Let me assure you, it doesn’t. People who are playing Pathfinder would not otherwise play D&D. The games have similar roots but are radically different in play and appeal to different customers. In fact, D&D players and Pathfinder players have been known to gently (and not so gently) mock each other for their preferred system.
In summation, money people spend on third party games would not otherwise be going to Wizards of the Coast. It might be going to new dice, or snacks, but it was never going to Wizards. And if these OGL changes go through, a lot less money is going to be going to Wizards. You’ve turned off a large portionof the community already and that number is only going to grow. If you’re waiting for it to blow over – if you think we’re just going to forget all this – remember that we memorize the Player’s Handbook for fun. Your customers aren’t the type to forget things.
Please publicly disavow the OGL 1.1 and get to work on a new version that’s fair for everyone. You might be able to rebuild some trust that way. Then, we D&D players can get back to arguing about whether or not we like proposed the changes to the exhaustion rules, what alignment Batman would be, and other things that really matter to us.
I’m sure you won’t read this, but open letters aren’t ever really about the person they’re addressed to.
Sincerely,
Xalthu
P.S. I’ve been playing D&D for 40 years, man. Don’t **** it up!
Cc: Cynthia Williams, Chris Cocks
He won't be reading this thread
I know that. Did you not read to the end?