We got our D&D 3.5 reprints in the mail the other day, and I can say, Wizards did a really great thing by reprinting them. Thank you guys. It also got me thinking about the OGL and the entire D&D 3.5 ecosystem, which is now pretty much well the Pathfinder market these days. Pathfinder is an incredible game, wonderfully put together and supported, with some of the best talent creating for the system.
The OGL, which D&D 3.5 is based on, is irreversibly open and out there for anyone to use, thus we have Pathfinder. Looking back at D&D 3.5, I can say it is a simpler system than Pathfinder, with less special rules, and a more meat & potatoes feel to the system. Several blogs have compared Pathfinder to a heavily house-ruled version of 3.5, which could be taken both as a positive and a negative. It's a positive since a lot of the clunky parts of 3.5 have been streamlined, but a negative it that the system is more complex (that may be a positive to some).
Why play 3.5? For one, it is simple, and the set of rules is contained in three iconic books - if that is all you want. One could conceivably run a new 3.5 game, and state all that exists in the world is contained in the reprinted books, and be fine for years of gaming. For some, this may be the chance for this sort of freedom, a break with the past using familiar rules from it.
The market is now positioned a lot like Linux. I can remember the days when special vendor-flavored Linux versions were all the rage, such as Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse, and any number of others from Linux's past. Today, we have new vendors and distributions, such as Ubuntu, Mint, Magela, Fedora, and many others (many of which have links to the past).
D&D 3.5 is Linux, the base of which all D&D is built. Pathfinder is one group's distribution of 3.5, and may it have a long and wonderful future. However, the fascinating thing to think about is, will there be another distribution of 3.5 in the future, what will it look like, who will it be targeted towards, will it become popular? There are many versions of 3.5 already out there, and I am sure many more in the works after the reprints.
Could it be Wizards itself that someday returns to the OGL? Anything can happen in Linux-land. If they did, they would have instant credibility and power in this space. Rationally, Wizards has nothing to fear from the OGL, and they have the brand-name associated with it, D&D. It would be exciting to see them come back, and it would shake things up here in pen-and-paper land, and show a new commitment to supporting the roleplaying ecosystem of "open gaming." Maybe someday, and it would certainly be an incredible event.
Time will tell what will happen, but the OGL will always be around to seed the ground anew for the next generation of gamers. This is the magic of open-source, a faith in the users that pays back to those who put the work in, for all time to come.
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