OK. After days and days of reading the 200 plus e-mails on the “open”
debate, I had to put my two cents in. First off for all the people who have commented
on this, I must ask: How many of these people are actually putting together d20
supplements for sale and how many are doing this as an exercise in theory? I can say
I am interested in doing a d20 sourcebooks and adventures. I have written an
adventure years ago for the original Ravenloft setting that I had planned to send into
Dungeon but never got around to it. Now with the d20 I am thinking about selling this
adventure and possibly giving it away for free. I must say I thought the d20 was an
incredible marketing plan by WOTC and is a very smart and powerful business move to
make WOTC appear to be friendlier to the general consumer. And with this move and the
new 3e D&D, I am very interested in bring so ideas to print with the OGL.
But, some people have gone a little to the extreme in saying that the OGL is not open
enough, they think WOTC should do this or WOTC should do that. WOTC is not your
friend, buddy pal or whatever. WOTC is a business that is in business to make money.
Period. As long as you buy their products they will care about what you think. The
reasoning for OGL is not because they want the people involved in the transformation
of the game. They want you to do the OGL to do all of their initial development of
new ideas and concepts for you and sell their third tier products for them, so they do
not have to. For those who don’t know, most RPG companies work on a three-tier
system: 1st tier is the Main rulebook and product necessary to play the game. 2nd
tier material is sourcebooks and such and 3rd tier materials are adventures and such.
3rd tier material do not usually do that well in the market, so it is financially
smart to have someone else do that for you.
With the OGL anybody can go along and make a “concept” or
“idea” in a viable game or setting and sell it. Now if you sell a lot of
these via Wizard’s Attic or some other distributor, there is a very good chance
you noticed by WOTC, by both as a potential campaign setting idea and for you skills
of getting a profitable product into the market. I know that this is a heated topic,
but personal I think if more people were actually doing more work instead of just
talking about it the d20 and the OGL would be better off.
Now after saying all of that I am going to do this: I am interested in starting an
online d20 magazine in PDF format. I am interested in people who would like to submit
something to it. We are looking for just about everything from writers to editors to
artist. We just want people to be part of it. We will not demand that people do OGL
material, but I must say work like that will be more favorably looked. If you would
like to speak more on this please e-mail me in private.
Peace,
Louis Porter, Jr.
Louis Porter, Jr. Design
www.lpjdesign.com
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
