Thursday 12 January 2023

OGL is not the problem

I'm not a lawyer nor publisher, so I'm not going to give you my opinion on how Open Game License works. Because however it does, the OGL is not the problem. 

OGL is not the reason why bad things happen to people in tabletop roleplaying hobby. 

OGL is not the reason why 5th edition of Vampire: the Masquerade was killed. 

OGL is not the reason why Lamentations of the Flame Princess struggles to survive. 

OGL is not the reason why Drivethru introduced new rules which basically stated "We can remove your content if you ever express your opinion about anything anywhere, just saying". 

Because all of this happened before the news about Hasbro planning to change the license arrived. 

And bad actors in the hobby were, and still are, the reason. 

Liars, harassers, and their useful idiots are the reason. 

They created the scandal around VtM which included a very real monster who was offended by the way he was portrayed in the book about monsters. 

They attacked James E. Raggi the IV and the LotFP, lying and harassing and basically making enough of a shitstorm for people to say "This is a shitstorm, I don't want to stand close by because I might get shitstormed" - people like distributors and con organizers.Which is bad for business, and also bad for Raggi personally. 

They attacked Zak, and were the reason why Violence in the Nympharium was never released. Nor was I Am The Weapon. And judging by what I've seen from the drafts, and from how Demon City looks - I Am The Weapon could've really been the best superhero game, ever. It's pretty good even in its unfinished variant, without the art - and art is something that makes Demon City unique. 

They are the reason that bad things happen in the hobby. 

And people who support them, promote them, praise them are part of the problem. 

People who, coincidentally, now run around like Putin-loving separatists during a russian missile attack and yell "The sky is falling, the sky is falling, the OGL is going to ruin everything!" 

Which makes about as much sense as the above-mentioned separatists yelling about USA trying to destroy the slavic culture. 

Because the problem that the separatists suddenly faced is not about USA, it's about the very man and the very country that they praised and supported and helped and attacked everyone who disagreed - Putin's Russia - making a move and hitting them with X-101 missiles. 

And the problem with the tabletop roleplaying hobby is not about OGL. It's about the people who supported the liars and harassers who did their best to break down the community which supported them. 

Still they're going to do what they do, because, obviously, it's easier to blame the OGL than to say "Well, fuck. I really messed up badly. I shouldn't have done what I did. I have to fix what I broke". 

And that is the problem.

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Kelvin Green has a gift for summarizing things.

I don't know if there's anything that can be added to what Kelvin posted.  I can only repeat it.