Delta Green: Removing the OGL

https://arcdream.com/home/2023/01/delta-green-without-the-ogl/

The Delta Green game is removing the OGL from their game. Good for them, and I will support them and pick up a fantastic game as well - I have not had the time to give this a look, but now I do.

If you come out and remove the OGL from your game, I will buy you and support you.

I am selling all my 5E books - except for 3rd party and my 5E retro-clones.

Way to go, Wall Street, setting back the entire indie RPG industry by 20 years. Who this hurts the most is small creators who would want to create Delta Green and other adventures for these games and put them under the OGL. Now we are back to "contact the publisher" and all that mess. I hope Creative Commons or some other sharing license takes hold to replace the now-garbage OGL.

RIP OGL, 2000-2023; you died too soon.

Cause of death: corporate greed.

The Death of Nerd Culture

As Marvel, Star Wars, DC, and Dungeons & Dragons all wither and die on the corporate vine, I get this feeling that pop culture, and more specifically, nerd culture, is dying as a corporate profit center.

And that is a beautiful thing.

Nerd culture will never die, but seeing it die as a reliable source of income for Wall Street is a good thing in my feeling. True nerds don't care if it dies, and we are used to being called pariahs for enjoying things others call stupid childish geeky stuff.

We, nerds, were always the outcasts, and we will welcome the feeling back.

Or we will find another marginalized form of entertainment and enjoy it while the mainstream nods and thinks they are remarkable for doing what big corporations say is "cool" these days. Bart Simpson was a fringe icon once until the marketers got a hold of him, and he became the poster child of selling out.

Just like Marvel, DC, Star Wars, LotR, and even D&D will be given the track record here. Do I enjoy D&D? Yes! Is it a positive force in society? Yes! Can I see the end of it, given the record of billion-dollar company stewardship of these franchises? Yes.

Like junk-food restaurants are junk food. I eat there and enjoy them, but I know they are entirely corporate and not the best for my health in the long run. Same with these billion-dollar nerd-culture franchises, fun in small amounts, but you can't feed a healthy imagination and a great life experience only by relying on them.

Relying on trademarked properties to express your imagination is not really imagination.

It is a reinterpretation at best.

Corporations need to do a better job stewarding nerd culture, inevitably telling more people they are not welcome to be a fan than they ever have expanded the fanbase. The few exceptions came early in the MCU, but this was due to the novelty of seeing those stories on the big screen for the first time. Like D&D, the novelty of seeing shows like Critical Role will wear off, and the fans will move on.

These pop culture touchstones have very little to keep them going after the novelty wears off.

And when you see them restricting access and tightening up the rules of who can use it, one thing can be sure, they are likely making the property more attractive as an asset for the balance sheet or a sale.

Without being negative or a hater, this isn't gaming (or what we love about it) we are talking about.

It is Wall Street.

And we can love a game and split that discussion apart from our love of a hobby or fandom and say we do not like the direction it is going or how it is being managed. But as a principal, I am moving on from superheroes in comics and building my own teams and characters to get excited about. I am writing my own fantasy stories and walking away from copyrighted worlds.

My imagination and creations are far better than something I have to "register on a corporate website" to be considered a creator and fan or even talk about the game on YouTube. And then have my "right to talk about the hobby" or even "share my play sessions" revoked by a license.

The mask is off.

So in a way, thank you, OGL 1.1 for opening the door for millions of people to walk away and be masters of their own imaginations again. Even if these draconian rules somehow get "rolled back due to feedback," the hand has been shown, and the writing is on the wall.

Nerd Culture Incorporated was sick and faltering already; this just drove the stake through the heart.

Ascendant: Platinum Edition

 Another cool Kickstarter to follow is the Ascendant: Platinum Edition game. This is the "revised edition" with many bug-fixes and play improvements, so it is worth checking out and diving into. The project starts in February of this year.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/autarch/ascendant-platinum-edition

We do not see too many new superhero RPGs, and this one is rated very highly.

Communities are Better Designers

Another thing about the One D&D mess is people will discover communities of gamers are far better game designers than the ones working for game companies. A 5E designed by a community effort? We have one in Level Up Advanced 5E, which is impressive.

Another is Low Fantasy Gaming, another awe-inspiring game with its old-school flavor and feeling. Both games do their own thing in terms of characters, but for everything else, you have excellent compatibility with all of your 5E books.

These are incredible implementations of 5E-like rules from independent designers with a dream and a community behind them. Most of your current 5E content can be ported in with some work, and monsters and magic items can be used as-is. And these games came from people's dreams of creating a 5E-like game everyone could enjoy.

And you are free to write your own too.

One massive problem with paid game designers who work for a company is that they inevitably get let go. Do you like a game because it is designed well and you are a fan of the designers? Just wait a while, and they won't be there long. The churn I have seen in big game companies over the years is sobering. And the designers who come in knowing little about the game or are inexperienced in design get to have a say before the community.

And if a version ceases publication or falls out of favor, another game sprouts up like a flower and replaces it.

Another massive issue with big game companies is they need to put out rules to maintain profits. Why do we need a 6E? Well, they had to sell so many books a lot of low-quality filler ended up in the main 5E rules over the years. The end of 6E will happen when they print too many books, the bloat gets to be too much, and that edition will end and be revised for a 7E.

If we have an "N" E, we will get an "N+1" E.

Because a new team will be hired eventually and want to make their own version of the game. Give it 10 years, and it will happen.

Also, much of the content in certain expansion books is not in the OGL, so it is "dead" content once a new version comes out. With open-game content, nothing is wasted, and no idea dies. Nor do you need to waste paper and toxic ink printing the same rules, slightly changed, and force people to get rid of books. Not to mention shipping them around the world and causing carbon emissions. Why?

The community should be the ones saying, "No more editions."

Not the company that keeps printing them.

With community efforts, the community designs the game - not some company that dictates to the community. If there are exploits, they get fixed. If there are un-fun rules, they get made more fun. If problematic items are in the game, the community makes them acceptable to the players who play the game. You can join the community and suggest how the rules should be developed or sell your own adventures and expansions for the game.

Are any of these games as "big" as 5E? Yes! In a way, they use the same familiar 5E rules. Adjusting is trivial, like a new version of a phone OS you learn to use since it works the same way as the last.

Open gaming is the world's game and your game too.

The OGL 1.1 (GSL 2.0) Mess

First up, this video is based on rumor, so be forewarned. But it gives a good analysis of what many people will be freaking out about in the coming days.

This is not the OGL 1.0a.

The OGL 1.1 is the GSL 2.0, in my opinion.

In my feeling, the OGL 1.1 is DOA. If the rumors are true, they can revoke it with a 30-day warning, and you are SOL - you have no license to sell your work, and Wizards owns it all royalty-free.

Support the OSR and open implementations of 5E. Don't look back. Walk away.

Don't listen to the haters and scare-mongering media that wants rage-clicks. People are searching for D&D and the OSR, and guess what? Here comes the hate bait. The media are simping for Wall Street, fueled by hateful Twitter clicks, so they will do and say anything to either force you to play One D&D or goad people to attack marginalized and alternative communities.

5E is dead; long live 5E.

And the OSR will be forever.

Adventurer Conqueror King System: Imperial Imprint

Some cool OSR news, the "Rules Cyclopedia" for ACKS is Kickstartering this summer as a 496-page compilation. This will be called the Adventurer Conqueror King System: Imperial Imprint, or ACKS II.

From the Facebook page:

I’m delighted to officially announce our next book for ACKS. Adventurer Conqueror King System: Imperial Imprint, or ACKS II, will be a 496-page compendium that updates and revises the rules for character creation, classes, equipment, proficiencies, adventures, campaigns, and warfare into one epic volume. It’s more than Like By This Axe, it will be available in our standard hardcover format as well as an exclusive leatherbound edition. There will be other books in the Imperial Imprint series as well, including a Judge’s handbook and creature compendium.

ACKS II is not just a new compilation of existing material published previously. It has many new features and improvements, both to the design and the layout. It corrects many longstanding complaints about the presentation of the rules, and subtly improves the game in ways that build on my 12 years of experience since first drafting it. However, ACKS II is not a “new edition” of ACKS, not in the sense that Wizards of the Coast has made new editions of D&D. It is almost entirely backwards-compatible with everything that has already been published. Lairs & Encounters, Heroic Fantasy Handbook, and all of our other amazing sourcebooks will be usable with, at most, a few pages of updates - less than the typical GM’s house rules. If ACKS was similar to Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert, ACKS II is most similar to D&D Rules Cyclopedia. You will not be playing a different game, just a better version of the game you already love.

ACKS II has been quietly playtested by an able group of ACKS experts for the last two years and already stands at 426 pages of text. It will Kickstart in summer 2023, probably around Independence Day. There’ll be more updates on ACKS II in the days and weeks ahead, with examples of the new class formats, proficiencies, and more.

I like this game, it is a fun OSR alternative focused on a Middle Ages world and plays like a B/X combined with a 4X generational kingdom management game. Not everything has to be "one B/X game to rule them all" and seeing the community creating new games and editions is always a great thing.

A Million Flowers Bloom

I have been watching reactions from creators about the One D&D mess, and seeing a lot of long-term D&D content creators cut ties with anything under a license that threatens their livelihood is a good thing.

From this disaster, a million flowers shall bloom.

Watching people embrace open gaming is a fantastic thing. They are waking up. Even if we get an exact open-source implementation of 5E under the OGL, widely supported and free for everyone to play, that will be one of the most incredible achievements for a gaming community.

Because the community is being built at this moment, you see it taking shape.

The OSR is the model, and those who love 5E are stepping up.

Welcome to the OSR, 5E.