Will Open Gaming Destroy Itself?
Open source software works because not everyone in the world can code software; you still, in the end, have raw consumers. But an open source game system is different, because anyone who can read and write can now design their own game system based off the core rules. And that dilutes the product. And that's not good.
Let me play Devil's Advocate here for a moment. I don't necessarily support the following position, but it's one I've not heard yet, and someone needs to say it. It may as well be me.
I believe that the d20 open gaming system is going to dilute the product to the point of meaninglessness.
The reason nobody, in the past, just made their own homebrewed system was that the quality sucked. Nobody could come up with a good system. It's not easy designing a game system. I know. But now, bam. Everyone has access to the same system, a system that works. So everyone immediately designs their own game worlds and adventures around their custom port of that engine. It's like dozens of versions of Dungeons and Dragons for sale. Which do you choose? Why choose at all if you can make your own? And if you do make your own, how do you market it?
It's like trying to sell snow to a village of Eskimos -- they've seen it, they can get their own elsewhere, for free, and yours doesn't look any different.
Because it's open gaming format, any small two-bit company, or individual, can write up a 20 page adventure, scrawl some maps, and sell it as a Dungeons and Dragons compatible adventure. 15 years ago, there were maybe 50 or 60 good core modules, and maybe a few hundred in total, all by fairly large companies. But now, already, there are hundreds of them on the Internet, some free for download, some for sale.
And when every moron 15-year-old with a computer can come up with gaming systems and offer them online, everyone has their own rules and nobody buys anything any more. There is no longer any one central website you can go to in order to find all d20 game products. Instead of one top-notch product you get a thousand fourth-tier products. Quantity over quality. A ton of bricks versus an ounce of gold.
What this means is D&D players now have too much choice from a pile of product that is likely, for the most part, inferior quality. Throw one good apple in a barrel of 100 apples. Now pick one. There are so many, you aren't likely to find the good one.
This might be different if people were using the d20 system in different ways, but they're not just writing stories and modules and adventures. Everyone is taking it upon themselves to reinvent the wheel.
From what I've seen, most of the chatter about d20 is about rebuilding the system in special custom ways, much like MUDders all recode pieces of Circle: adding classes, adding skills, redoing magic. And if you're at all familiar with the way MUDs work, it's like this: One person makes a mud. It's cool. A few hundred people play it. Then, everyone realizes they can make their own muds. Thousands of muds spring up, each draws a few hundred players. Then there are thousands of MUDs. Then no one MUD can draw a big enough audience to make it worth keeping alive. So MUDs start to die. And the MUDs as a whole die off.
Don't believe me there? Check out the listings on Mud Connector. Why are there a thousand fewer MUDs this year than there were just a few years ago?
Everquest.
Everquest is not a mud. You can't do what they did by yourself. You'd need a team of graphic artists and coders and marketing people and a network of servers and so on and so forth. And because they are the only ones doing what they do, the way they do it, they don't get hundreds. They get hundreds of thousands. They make money.
The way Dungeons & Dragons used to do it.
But now, it's as if Everquest gave away their codebase, so that every kid with a Pentium III and enough RAM could run his own Everquest, with his own friends. And if that were to happen, the Everquest behemoth would crash to the ground.
Why pay a monthly fee when you can do the same thing for free?
Why buy rulebooks when you can invent your own game system for free?
Why play Dungeons & Dragons when you can create Monsters & Mayhem?
Wizards has given away the keys to the treasury here, and there are thousands of greedy adventurers ransacking the castle as we speak.
Unlike the movies, this one doesn't necessarily have a happy ending.
What do you think?
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You allude to open source software in your own intro to this article - the parallels are rather striking. You quote "not everyone can code". Welp, lemme tell you something - if you're a programmer and you hang around in programmer circles, yeah, everyone can code. It's an issue of coding *well*.
100's of d20 modules in a barrel? Thousands of crappy Sourceforge projects, dead from the start, horrifically coded, broken in all places, run by morons who couldn't take the time to read a book about software design. Not everyone can pen a Stephen King book, but throw some Koontz on the heap, and you've got challenges to the throne everywhere.
The d20/ogl system is nothing more than FUDGE on a larger scale. There are tons and tons of FUDGE expansions, books, modules and so on. It's not gamestream popular because there's no marketing money behind it. WotC has the money and the easily placed "Dungeons and Dragons" trademark.
To be honest, I'd much rather have someone create a crappy module for d20, then to try to write a brand new system, destined to be "the best of GURPs, Palladium, and HERO!" At least if he releases crap in d20, I can find out *quicker* that a bugbear with four heads, 16 HD, and two fairy accomplices indicates pretty quickly the quality of the module.
How has anything changed? Look at AD&D of 5 years ago. Look at all the "Great Netbook of Xs" floating around out there. At least 90% of it sucks. You'd have to download reams of things just to get a few good tidbits. Everyone with a web site thought they were the next Gygax. Is there anyone who didn't tinker with house rules, even casually?
Fast forward to today. What's different? Everyone with a website still thinks they're the next EGG. However, some people are willing to put their money where their mouth is and now they have a safe way to do so. Does a lot of it still suck? Absolutely. Is some of it really good? Absolutely.
Does this hurt consumers? Of course not. Are there still consumers? Most definitely. Has anything changed? Nope.
In short, anyone who makes their own d20 addons and changes was likely to do so with AD&D 5 years ago as well. d20 doesn't make it easier to do, it just makes it easier to distribute.
Sheesh.
Open Source software works because there is a way to have value added on to it--service plans, support, or extra propritetary software. The fact that it's "open" isn't nearly as important to the *financial* side of things as the face that it's *free* is.
Open Gaming, on the other hand, has this in the license--you don't pay for the right to use the rules. You pay for the right to own a copy of all the cool non-open parts therein... at the very least, the cool formatting and art.
Every company that makes a d20 product, from Wizards of the Coast to Team Frog, realizes this. The d20 trademark license is *designed* on the concept of added value--in the case of d20, the added value of just the "d20" name itself.
Also, "the product" of Dungeons and Dragons or Sword Sorcery cannot be diluted--their name isn't going anywhere, and can't be used. If something says "D&D" on it, it's been run through the profesional Wizards of the Coast team. If something is made by Sword & Sorcery, it's been made by that proven team.
One more point--*everyone* who plays an RPG runs their own MUD. It's called a RPG campaign, and it's got no more to do with the basic rules than a piece of software has to do with its operating system. You can use the most popular one, or you can convert to something else entierly--and your thing (software or campaign) can remain pretty much the same.
::Publishing aint that easy. Getting a book out costs money. Money for editing and proofreading. Money for page layout and formatting. Money for the service bureau to get the book ready for printing and money for the printer. Then you've got to sell the thing.::
This is two different things, however. I'd argue that the first isn't nearly as difficult as you posit. We're already seeing some success in the world of Net publishing. And it does NOT take lots of money to publish your ruleset as a PDF file online, or to offer it as a text file. It's very easy. And lots of people are doing it. I know. Since I've been writing for Gamegrene, I've received dozens of emails from people saying "Please review my homegrown RPG which is online at http://xxx.com". Of course, I'm happy to take a look. But it strikes me how many of them there are. It's almost as if nobody feels the existing games are good enough, as if they all have to design their own.
Now, selling it, that's the tough part. And that's where I think this will all eat itself alive. Look at the way the Internet worked. Back in the day (1991-1992) when I used the Prodigy Internet service, it cost a bundle just to be online, and then you had to pay extra for email. Then a few more Internet providers came out, and the price went down. 40 hours free to join us. 80 hours free. 120 hours free. 500 hours free. A thousand hours free in your first month to join us. $29.95 a month. $19.95 a month. $9.95 a month.
FREE Internet!!!
And now, as we're seeing, it's all collapsing on itself. The Free Internet companies, who thought they could give away a product that others were charging money for, all disappeared. They offered inferior quality, and people recognized that.
What... hold on. That's just what we were saying about the Open Gaming movement. Lots of people, giving things away on the cheap or for free, and nobody using their poorer quality stuff.
Which is, in the end, what I'm positing is a possible concern. That the Open Gaming Movement itself is making possible a secenario in which hundreds and thousands of people with a cool idea will rush into the market, publish (I use the term loosely) their material, and thus oversaturate the market to the point where the Movement eats itself alive and goes away.
And judging from the (at least apparent) lack of cohesion among OGF members I've seen, I'd say it's more than a passing concern (albeit not assured).
Publishing aint that easy. Getting a book out costs money. Money for editing and proofreading. Money for page layout and formatting. Money for the service bureau to get the book ready for printing and money for the printer. Then you've got to sell the thing.
Your book don't sell, you won't get your money back; much less make a profit. Once word gets out that your book stinks worse than a troll's opinion, your sales are going to tank.
So lots of folks start up D20 publishing companies. What's going to happen to most of them? They'll fail. Some because of pure bad luck, but most will flop thanks to the bad product they put out.
Any predictions? Yep, Other World Creations. The writing in the _Diomin_ book is amateur, and the presentation is even worse. It would take me paragraphs to describe all that's wrong with the book. If OWC wishes to stay in business they must improve performance. Any company producing product as lacking as _Diomin_ will go under.
Cruel? Yep, and true.
Will we see lots of small time operators going the D20 route? Yes. Will most of them fail? Got that right. Will those that produce quality product survive? You'd better believe it.
The consumers will make their choice, spending their scarce shekels on products they feel are worth it. Thus the market will constrain the number of companies out there.
Don't worry, D20 won't get _that_ diluted.
Has HTML ruined the web? There are tons of crappy sites out there all based on an open standard, yet we quickly and easily sort through all the garbage to find the things we're looking for. Will there be a proliferation of crap based on the d20 system? Undoubtedly, but there will also be gems. Freedom comes with a price, a price most of us are easily willing to pay in order to be given the power to do whatever we wish. Things like d20/ogl and all of the opensource projects on the web give us the freedom to explore our natural desire to create. That's a gift some people will use better than others, but would you take it away just because they haven't created the be-all-end-all module or game? How good were your first html pages, or you're first time at the helm as DM? Just like the rest of us, you probably sucked; but you had fun and most likely got better in time. Would you like to have never been given the chance to experiment in the first place because some person, or group, decided not to give you that power for fear that you might abuse it? I doubt it.
For a close parallel, look at the dot.com companies that announced themselves just a year ago. Most are dead now. A few are still around, and some are even doing well. But the vast majority tanked. The same's going to happen with the D20 companies; most will tank, a few will survive, and a few of those will do will.
Which ones? Those that present quality product.
Unfortunately, as the bad companies go down they'll likely drag down a few good companies along with them. Back in the TCG craze Last Unicorn Games produced Heresy, Kingdom Come. A beautiful TCG. It was released just when the TCG market started to collapse, and potential buyers stayed away in droves, not wanting to get burned again. And so a good game was ignored.
We'll be seeing that with the D20 thing, good companies being dragged down with the bad. Such is life.
But will D20 itself be destroyed? Doubt it. There are still Dot.Com companies out there, and TCG publishers. Once the dust has settled there will be D20 publishers still in action, still publishing.
Those companies that establish a reputation for quality and reliability will survive for the most part. Right now, the only one that can kill the whole thing is Wizards, and if the D20 idea takes off in a big way, they would have to be damn stupid to stop it. (Financially stupid if the sale of 3rd party D20 material results in greater Core rules sales.)
Patience, it will all get sorted out in the long run.
"Why pay a monthly fee when you can do the same thing for free?
Why buy rulebooks when you can invent your own game system for free?
Why play Dungeons & Dragons when you can create Monsters & Mayhem?"
all for this reason: "Instead of one top-notch product you get a thousand fourth-tier products. Quantity over quality. A ton of bricks versus an ounce of gold."
If it's crap, people won't buy it. the d20 community is pretty strong, and opinionated. People will buy things (and some people will always buy EVERYTHING), and if it's no good then they'll tell the msg boards and their friends.
Anyway, the fun for me has always been in playing original adventures based in original campaign worlds...official modules always need changing anyway...
This isn't a comment but a question. I keep hearing about this amazing d20 system. What is it? Is it the current gaming rules for D&D?
Well I know nothing about this d20 system, but I do know about muds. And I know flat out that the paregraph below just isn't true - there are now more of these and more playing than ever before. I've been doing this for 8 years, and I've never seen more listings than there are there at the moment...
"From what I've seen, most of the chatter about d20 is about rebuilding the system in special custom ways, much like MUDders all recode pieces of Circle: adding classes, adding skills, redoing magic. And if you're at all familiar with the way MUDs work, it's like this: One person makes a mud. It's cool. A few hundred people play it. Then, everyone realizes they can make their own muds. Thousands of muds spring up, each draws a few hundred players. Then there are thousands of MUDs. Then no one MUD can draw a big enough audience to make it worth keeping alive. So MUDs start to die. And the MUDs as a whole die off.
Don't believe me there? Check out the listings on Mud Connector. Why are there a thousand fewer MUDs this year than there were just a few years ago?"
I have screenshots from a few years back in my archives that show that the statement is true. There were more muds listed a few years ago than there are today (1685 Mud Listings).
This may be slightly OT, but...
There is a group that shares the concern that much of the stuff put out will be crap. To that end, they are trying to organize a central repository for "good" 3e netbooks.
Without just re-hashing their stuff, lemme give the link:
http://www.dndcommunitycouncil.org/
And now, On-Topic...
I firmly believe that lowering the bar for entry is a good thing. You get a bunch of people jumping in. Wait about a year or two. You will see WotC, probably SSS, and a few other quality producers that are financially viable. The other 800 will be gone and we won't worry about this discussion. Joe Schmoe can still publish his stuff, but unless it's really good, nobody will buy it - he can't break into the market.
There are two good times to jump in if you're good - now, to get yourself noticed and establish a loyal fan base, and in about a year or two after the tide has receded and only the good companies are left. Jump in between those times and you will likely be pulled back with the failures - nobody knows you well enough yet and people are focusing only on the names they have tried and liked. Once everybody's gone who will die, the market isn't so diluted and a new publisher is a big deal.
My 2 coppers...
You make a good point, and my guess is that the good folks who decided to open source (did I just use a noun as a verb? Bad!) AD&D realized this.
That's why they are willing to let you make whatever you want using their system, with the provision that anything you design they have the right to take from you and sell on their own. It's realy quite a deal for them.
They get thousands of free developers. Your point still stands that a majority of these will be pretty dissapointing. That's ok though, because they can take the few good ones and sell them.
So the gamers start to realize that most of these modules and redesigned games are pretty lame, and they want to find the good ones without having to look through all the junk. Suddenly there's a whole crop of AD&D Approved 3rd Edition Expansions that you can order. They're printed on nice paper stock, they have a professional piece of cover art, and they've been certified as the best of the bunch.
If a gamer is willing to shell out $30 for the 3rd edition players handbook, and another $30 for the DMG, what's $19.95 for a good expansion and $9.95 for a quality adventure module?
More money for the company (they just had to pay for printing and art, not game designers) and good material for the gamers. It all works out in the end.
I think the current trend of "everyone jumping in and designing their own thing" is a monument to roleplaying. The scenario we are seeing played out today is, precisely, roleplaying (inventing)... beautiful. Of course, not all the new productions are good, nor will the many yet to be thought of become good. Yet, in the course of this fantastic rampage, lots of people (writers, artists, Gygax-wannabes... call them what you will) are having massive fun... creating, planning, risking.... Ah, the entrepreneurial spirit! Competition! Great! The prices will not soar to heretofore unseen heights. The gameworld is in check. This is healthy and good.
I choose to express the Darwinian-like theory here... as, ultimately, the cycle will again shift... a once mass proliferation of a variating species will result in intense competition. Is this bad? No, not at all. What will survive will be stronger and better than ever. Doom? No. Hell, no. The fittest will survive. Roleplaying, in whatever future shape it may evolve, is here to stay.
The Darwinian analogy is dead on man.
I think the D20 system will only get stronger and will remain alive for many years partly because of the open gaming license.
Remember when TSR started suing anyone that dared have dragons in their products? They killed many gaming companies (like... Role Aids wasn't it?) they shut down sites that had net books, etc.
They were like some countries that don't allow cultural diversity to proliferate within their borders. Given enough time, these cultures crash down and become part of history. Historically, when did cultures evolve the fastest? When they came into contac with cultures they had never met before. When european countries started trading with the orient they took many inovative technological wonders from them and in turn their religion had a big impact on the eastern religions and philosophies.
Look at the US: for a while many imigrants brought in parts of their culture, their ideas, their mentality to the "New World" which created the "American Melting Pot".
Here in Quebec, the blend of American Indian folklore, anglo-saxon conservatism, latin passion, catholic "culpabilitism" and for the past 50 years US pop culture has influenced our art, our way of life and how we see the world.
The open gaming system, like the net, is just a way for people to speed up the process of creating new ideas, of imagining new places to go in our minds.
Just like White Wolf did with their system; Mage, Vampire and Werewolf were a big success whereas Faerie and Wraith weren't so successful. But still, all 5 enriched the "world of darkness" setting, just like the star trek spin offs have done for that imaginary universe.
Had White Wolf had an open gaming license back in the early 90's, maybe WOTC would publish "World of Darkness" compatible products instead of White Wolf producing Sword and Sorcery and Ravenloft.
Imagine what FASA could have done with Shadowrun…
But still, Talsorian sold, gave or lent the rights to the Cyberpunk system to Dream Pod 9 and the Cyberpunk RPG died anyway... so an open license isn't the only thing.
Most D20 companies will die off, some will be absorbed into others but as a whole the d20 system will survive. That is untill another corporation can come up with another machiavelic idea that will make "would be gaming moguls" switch to their system and start another "gaming gold rush".
You have to admit that alot of the stuff we see is crappy beyond belief, but as someone said before their are some not so rare gems out there... one just has to find them.
Cthulhu Matata!
Why is it Aeon's rants I keep replying to?
You know, the arguments that have been applied to this debate (poor quality d20 vs. good quality d20) are also being applied on a larger scale to the games industry.
Why think micro when you can think macro - look at the big picture here! Look at the games with overcomplex systems, particularly naff or inaccessible settings, those products of consistently poor quality, or who over-rely on a film/merchandising tag. Where are the classics like RoleMaster, Gamma World, Wraith or the entirety of the FUZION line? Where is the West End D6 system or the Conan system? To paraphrase: They're not resting.
You can write reams of stuff. It could be great. It could be poorly edited, graphically grim stuff. You can look at the really early editions of D&D (back in the days of Eldritch Wizardry) to see an example of this kind of thing in action. Funnily enough, this kind of natural selection is nothing new to people but everyone hoots on about how small presses will kill the hobby where big games play. Forgive my mocking laughter.
The thing is small-scale vanity press games are where the industry grows! Showing my age here, I remember when WW were releasing fantasy systems the first time round... now look at them! The quality of small-scale publications is variable - this is no surprise to anyone. Sometimes though, you'll hit a gem in the rough. Numerous house-rules exist, either in fanzines, on the Web or similar for a number of systems.
If you want to look at a real threat to the hobby, look at the continuous re-vamping of game lines, re-re-releases of 'classic' products, conventions where customers are treated like idiots, gaming organisations mismanaged, excessive legislation around game settings.
Natural selection will weed out the weak. The strong just need to make sure they don't alienate their fanbase. Take note those at the forefront of their hobby!
Hi everyone,
The URL below is worth following:
http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/3point5comments.html
It doesn't totally blow off 3.5, but it does confirm for me the main driving force behind WOTC/Hasbor isn't giving the players what they want, or improving the game or any of that. It is and always will be greed.
And it does raise the question : What price d20 now?
- Grey