Pathfinder and the Open Gaming License

[Note, this article contains some observations that I had for a long time.]
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This article should be titled How Wizards of the Coast Killed the Open Gaming Movement, and how Paizo saved it


But that's just too much.  Recently there was a thread on Paizo's boards were a poster was concerned that the Pathfinder SRD Wiki (Pathfinder OGC) was posting material before it was published.  However, Paizo came to the site's defense and said a public thank you.  Several other publishers followed their lead.

Paizo supports the Open Gaming Movement, as the company now carries the torch for Open Gaming.  This is because they use the OGL, or Open Gaming License, which is been generally good for the creative side of our little interest.  So, why is Paizo carrying the torch?  Why isn't Wizards of the Coast still carrying the torch?  That's simply because they dropped it.

About eleven years ago, Ryan Dancey convinced Wizards of the Coast to open up and release the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition System to all of us.  This is simply because Dungeons and Dragons was the most popular roleplaying system in the world (followed by GURPS, et al.)  And it is true, most every RPG markets their system as different from D&D.  There is a lot of D&D hate, and a lot of love at the time.

In truth, I wasn't going to buy in to the system, as 2nd Edition really is something I was content with.  I was frustrated over the rejections I've been getting so I prayed that I wouldn't have to go through TSR or Wizards of the Coast to publish my ideas.  Well, the OGL was an answer to a prayer!  From my perspective it was the best thing to happen in a long time!  Well, that is until Wizards of the Coast reserved the right not to OGL everything they came out with.

I went -- "huh?"

So began years of non-support.  Wizards of the Coast did not support the d20 system.  Yet, they were coming out with a lot of good stuff that should be put in the System Reference Document.  A partial list includes:

• Kalashtar
• Warforged
• Shifters
• Tactical Feats
• Several Feats
• Racial Substitution Levels
• The new NPC format

Plus, they were bought out by Hasbro, which was not a good thing.  Wizards of the Coast had lost their self-determination, and many of their products started going downhill.  d20 was dying.  Not just because of all the not so stellar products, and how the FLGS treated the d20 market; but also because Wizards of the Coast did not give any support.  There was no reviews by Wizards of the Coast staff on what they liked.  There was no referrals, there was no use on really what they liked, except for one or two pieces.  And every new product they put out, except for d20 modern products and Unearthed Arcana, information wasn't added to the SRD.

The SRD was dying.  And the death knell was the 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons.  Good bye SRD, good bye WIzards OGL.  The d20 System was going to die, after all, 4th Edition is a completely different game than from the other three. Most established publishers (creative types) got frustrated with the GSL, and they didn't want to adopt the new system and publish derivative works for 4th Edition.  Only a few got on the ball, and they had to work around the GSL to publish.  After all, the GSL was designed to really inspire creativity and originality.  I guess no one ever got the memo, no one ever has.  The OGL Movement seemed dead.

However, all is not lost.  Enter PAIZO PUBLISHING.

Paizo,  got its start by publishing the Dragon and Dungeon magazines.  Paizo broke off Wizards of the Coast to publish these magazines for Wizards of the Coast.  This was a good thing until WotC cut off the license to print these magazines.  The reaction was less than stellar, as WotC thought it was better to make them apart of their DDI.

Paizo responded by creating Pathfinder.  Pathfinder cleans up the 3rd Edition of the D&D game.  The System itself streamlines the 3rd Edition and makes it work.  Clearly a derivative, Pathfinder took two years to write and edit before it came out on the market.   When Pathfinder was published, several companies were started and they jumped aboard.  The OGL movement was restarted anew.

It also made it easier that PAIZO couldn't pull the same trick that Wizards of the Coast did.  That is, claim full ownership over the d20 System and any derivatives they pumped out.  Each new book had an OGL attached, meaning that the d20 System was still owned by Wizards of the Coast.  The Pathfinder OGC site was started, where the whole gaming system could be documented and referenced besides the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document (or PRD).  Paizo offered full support to 3rd Party Publishers.

On the Paizo Blog, the Paizo folks would -- by all accounts -- review 3rd Party products that used the d20 System on their Blog.   Plus they sell 3rd party products, and allow people to critique them.  The mistakes that Wizards of the Coast had made it seemed that Paizo has learned from.  Where Wizards of the Coast now acts like a bully, Paizo is much more respectful of creativity.

Most say that Copyright is a good thing.  It was designed to forment Creativity and help authors produce new works.  However, it's not necessarily so now.  Copyright serves the publisher today, and the publisher only.  However, the OGL is the best thing that happened to gaming and creativity in this arena of Roleplaying Games.  After all, despite of the lackluster products for the d20 System out of third party publishers, there is no doubt that the d20 System (D&D and all) is enriched because of stiff competition.  It's an experiment that works in opening a game system and provides output.

For other personal opinions on how the Open Gaming Movement has been good I have a few references here:

Monte Cook's The Open Game License, as I see it pt 1
The Open Game License, as I see it pt 2
Copyright and Game Rules
Why do we need Open Source Games?

An Open Appreciation for Paizo

I am impressed on how PAIZO treats the 3rd Party Community for the OGL. Since I read the open letter about how 3rd Party Publishers enjoy the service they get from the company -- like being used as a sales point.

I write third party products, and I am very impressed. As a libertarian, it has become increasingly important to me to look at the issues on Personal Property Rights and how the Free Market operates. In this appreciation, I'd like to focus on Free Market Enterprise. The D&D Market is incredibly small compared to say: several Sports. This niche caters to the most creative of people (who are also very intelligent, I may add). Eventually, they create their own works -- campaign setting, house rules, what have you.

The OGL and GSL allows them to create their own work and to publish them for others to use. While the 3rd Party Publishers of 4th Edition materials are left in the lurch, PAIZO has realized that competition is healthy for the hobby as a whole when there is some level of cooperation. By all appearances the level of cooperation is very high. PAIZO uses 3rd Party OGL material in their products as well as do some low level advertising for these companies. It makes me smile. Back in the day, Wizards used very little if no OGL content (there was one or two exceptions -- the Razor Boar and the Scorpion Folk in the MM2). I don't know what has gotten ahold of Wizards' thinking; but people who bought the products felt that Wizards' material is absolutely the best and they buy nothing but wizards' products in later years.

Why that happened, I have a theory. But I do believe that the Free Market was in action! Now that things have sorted themselves out, the OGL community can continue forward with support from PAIZO itself. This will help a lot of people down the road. Not only we writers have reviewers, but we also have the people working at PAIZO, and that's a good thing. This actually helps everyone involved in knowing what might be gems, and what might be dross. It also helps us writers to actually write well and better additions to Pathfinder.

So this is a good thumbs up!

Elton Robb
♡2011 Copying Art is an act of love. Please copy and share.

Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, and the Game System License

I believe that Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast owns a complete Intellectual Monopoly over Dungeons and Dragons and the 4th Edition of said game.  This belief is reinforced by comments on Enworld stating that they believe that Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast has the 3rd Party Publishers where they want them.

Contrast this with Paizo Publishing and their efforts to keep 3.5 Edition alive and in print with the Pathfinder game.  Paizo Publishing uses the OGL and encourages everyone to do the same.  This means that Paizo Publishing does not have an Intellectual Monopoly over Pathfinder.  But Wizards of the Coast does over Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition.

The secret is in the license.  Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast are protecting their intellectual monopoly through the enforcement of the Game System License on third party publishers.  Secondly, they do not allow third party publishers to add to the DDI.  Thirdly, to protect their monopolies, they took down the option to buy PDFs of earlier editions of the game.

Now, why would you think they want to do that?  They wanted to protect their monopoly.  However, locking an important piece of gamer culture away.  Possibly forever.  Future generations will be unable to play the games their parents or grandparents played.  And this is bad.

The U.S. Constitution, an inspired Document made to guide and limit the power of the U.S. Government, provides for Copyrights.  Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause, the Copyright and Patent Clause (or Patent and Copyright Clause), the Intellectual Property Clause and the Progress Clause, empowers the United States Congress: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

This is really a good thing -- Copyright is supposed to protect the consumer as well as the production.  But how Wizards of the Coast is using their art is not a good thing, and they are hiding behind the Constitution and various Copyright Laws that came into existence since then.  Especially the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.  About a decade ago, Wizards of the Coast embarked on the Open Game License because Ryan Dancey understood what had happened during TSR, inc's stewardship over Dungeons and Dragons under Lorraine Williams.  TSR, inc. attacked their own fans for posting derivative works of the Dungeons and Dragons game.  To prevent this from happening, Ryan Dancey convinced everyone at WotC to open the game up.  Thus the Open Game License was born!

However the license was a dismal failure.  Not because of the license itself.  But because of WotC itself.  They hardly, if ever, used the license.  WotC kept their own toys to themselves while ironically publishing them.  In other words, they never supported the Open Gaming movement themselves.  They just wanted to keep their own intellectual monopoly on everything they produced.  When 4th Edition was released, I saw the writing on the wall and never bought into the new system.

Wizards of the Coast fears the Open Gaming Movement they inspired.  They also fear the Public Domain, since they believe in intellectual "property" rights.  Such a stance, however, is in line with the Big Six media companies -- one of which is the Walt Disney Company.  Content, information, CULTURE, should be free.  Books, DVDs, Computers, Film Prints, and Concert Performances should not be free.

People should be able to build on the Dungeons and Dragons game and other open games, adding to our culture and enriching the culture base.  Dungeons and Dragons the game, in what ever incarnation, should be free.

So I propose that Copyright should be limited to physical media of distribution -- Books, computers, DVDs, CDs, Film Prints, and Concerts.  And not to the culture contained within.  All information should be released into the public domain for Artistic Expression and Advancement of the Arts; but the containers they are contained in should be restricted by copyright.  Copyright should be a publisher's right to reproduce all culture in a PHYSICAL form.  Culture should be free and in the domain of the public.  The public has the Unalienable Right to produce derivative works on all culture.  No culture should be locked up by Big Media companies.  If it's physical, there should be a copyright or printer's right ("printer's right, I love that!").  If it's energy, or if it exists as 1s and 0s and is transmitted by laser, airwave, sound, or analog communication -- then copyright should not apply.

 Copyright is bad.  Printers' Rights -- the Right to reproduce culture in a physical form -- is good.  Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro is doing a very bad thing by enforcing their Intellectual Monopoly.  Lets abolish this and give Artist's the right to endorse a publisher to publish their work on the Internet, in books, on film, or whatever.  Artists create by deriving their work on what has come before, not by creating out of whole cloth.  Therefore, I urge everyone who reads this blog to send a letter to Wizards of the Coast and tell them in no uncertain terms that their Intellectual Monopoly over all editions of Dungeons and Dragons is bad for the gaming community, bad for artists, and bad for the world at large.

If they don't listen, boycott them and buy from 3rd party publishers only.  Or buy from Paizo and send a letter to Paizo that you support the Open Gaming Movement by patronizing them and their products.

Why won't people . . .

take 3D art seriously?

I mean seriously.  I sent my portfolio in to Wizards of the Coast.  And a colleague claims they do only the traditional arts.  Blah, blah!  I've gotten good enough to be professional at this.  Yeah!  A real PRO!  So, what to do . . .

Sent in my Portfolio to Wizards of the Coast

You know?

I just sent my Portfolio in to Wizards of the Coast. Well, really a link to a website. Why? Well, some of the stuff I do deserves to be on an RPG Book cover or in an RPG Book as filler or interior illustration.

Although I am limited as to what I can do since I don't model my own stuff, I can try to learn if I had the right programming (Carrara, Vue, and Cinema 4D first then upgrade all the way to Maya). Making the Dragonborn would be a challenge since I have to change heads on V4 and M4 and make some interesting textures. If at all possible, since seams would be bad for dragon skin. :)

Oh well, I'll just . . . cross that bridge. :)