Open Licenses and Electronic Gaming

I miss the OGL.

D&D 4's GSL didn't feel like a real 3rd party license to me, and some said it limited 3rd party support of D&D 4 with its restrictive nature. I didn't see too many great 3rd party products for D&D 4, and the character builder data being limited to D&D Insider hurt 3rd party class and power add-on books. I did not like that license much for that fact.

D&D 5 needs a great community publishing license, and this feels like a huge missed opportunity at launch. We used to help organize product launches for a company, and making sure community and 3rd party support was strong on day #1 was a key part of a product launch's success. I would have loved to had all three D&D 5 books out on launch day, plus a great community license for 3rd party support - and plenty of 3rd party books launching on day #1.

You go big or go home in product launches, and organizing a great launch day with plenty of things to buy creates a hype and level of success all in itself.

D&D 5's 3rd party license is promised to be next year, and I am hopeful for an open publishing model like the OGL. I know there is always that desire to control things, but systems flourish and thrive the more you let others play with them. D&D 3.x proved that, and Pathfinder continues that trend.

Pathfinder, of course, is the king of 3rd party support right now, and I just love this model, It supports the free flow of ideas, and I can buy class and power books, and programs from 3rd party companies like Hero Lab can add those data sets to their program, and we can have a wonderful world of options and different ideas available for our choosing. Modules, game worlds, powers, classes - you can go to town and buy everything and have years worth of gaming and options in the Pathfinder/Paizo marketplace, and I love it.

Electronic game support could be better, it has always been a sore spot with the OGL. I would love for Paizo to break with the OGL, write a new set of rules, and open up support for electronic 3rd party publishing and other options with a new and freer license. I think they could do it, and if there ever is a Pathfinder 2.0, I would love for them to revolutionize the open gaming movement and take things a step further with community licensed video gaming with a new set of rules.

So in a way, the OGL is the way to go, but it needs to be replaced. The thinking needs to be along the same lines of "the more people play with our rules the more successful we are" - and this needs to cross into the electronic realm. Imagine if every fantasy game on every phone, laptop, and tablet were an advertisement for your game rules, with a non-onerous 'license required' splash screen and hotlink to your store built into every game. People should be buying electronic games, MMOs, cell phone games, character designers, and other entertainment software because it all follows the rules set they love.

This is possibly one of the largest 'missed opportunities' in RPG publishing these days, and I hope it changes soon.