Eh, while that's technically true, the boost from D&D's popularity was mostly a thing, like, 10-20 years ago, back then the OGL was first slapped together and WotC was a very different company. Like, for reference, the original OGL (aka the one they tried to sneakily "update") was written at around the same time that Nemesis/Prophecy/Invasion came out. And the fundamental goal was that no one would pull another Roberta Williams and torpedo the hobby's shared cultural legacy. Did it lead to a big upsurge in the hobby? Kinda, yeah — it lead to a shitton of terrible d20 games, and the existence of Paizo as we currently know it. But the trick they tried to pull is essentially the D&D equivalent of Magic30 — it's the current owners of the company pissing goodwill that was built up 20 years ago for short-sighted gain.
To rephrase my arglbargl early in the thread — the version 1.0a of the OGL was a good fucking thing for the D&D portion of the hobby (with the rest of the hobby getting the trickle-down of people who didn't like 3.x), but the fact that all of the major players in the D&D sub-hobby are threatening to make their own license (with blackjack! and hookers!) indicates that its reason for existing has effectively passed. It'd honestly be for the best if D&D flipped WotC off and walked off.
To use a bit of a tortured metaphor, if RPGs were the internet, D&D would be social media... and the specific instance of D&D that WotC publishes (namely the fifth edition of"Hey, let's cut my business partner out of future royalties" AD&D) is... let's say Twitter.
...
I had a big ol' rant about what the current RPG "boom" feels like from the perspective of someone who started playing back in 2009 (and who has been reasonably active in the RPG scene since), but I deleted it because... ugh, it's damn alienating, and ranting like this makes me damn tired.
The important thing is that I hope you have a damn good time in your next game.
EDIT: You know what? As a more Riptide-y use of my frustration... if anyone wants suggestions of games to try, just ask. I've got enough RPGs living in my head rent-free that I might be able to give you some cool shit to try out.
To rephrase my arglbargl early in the thread — the version 1.0a of the OGL was a good fucking thing for the D&D portion of the hobby (with the rest of the hobby getting the trickle-down of people who didn't like 3.x), but the fact that all of the major players in the D&D sub-hobby are threatening to make their own license (with blackjack! and hookers!) indicates that its reason for existing has effectively passed. It'd honestly be for the best if D&D flipped WotC off and walked off.
To use a bit of a tortured metaphor, if RPGs were the internet, D&D would be social media... and the specific instance of D&D that WotC publishes (namely the fifth edition of
...
I had a big ol' rant about what the current RPG "boom" feels like from the perspective of someone who started playing back in 2009 (and who has been reasonably active in the RPG scene since), but I deleted it because... ugh, it's damn alienating, and ranting like this makes me damn tired.
The important thing is that I hope you have a damn good time in your next game.
EDIT: You know what? As a more Riptide-y use of my frustration... if anyone wants suggestions of games to try, just ask. I've got enough RPGs living in my head rent-free that I might be able to give you some cool shit to try out.
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