D&D, the OGL, and "a path forward"

Kyle Brink, Executive Producer on D&D, said today that he wants to talk about the path forward. I don’t think it is going to be the path he expects. The following is from a Twitter thread I sent as a reply. Most of the other replies I saw were… less than thrilled by Kyle’s attempt to “walk back” the damage that has recently been done to trust between them and D&D fans. I managed to break the thread, making it hard to follow, so I’m going to post my full reply here. Before you read it, read Kyle’s statement here:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license

My reply:

Kyle:

I’ve been a player & DM from the brown-box first edition. I fear you folks may have done permanent harm to the brand this time. I haven’t seen gamers this mad since an arrogant Gary Gygax announced that D&D was the One True Game & everyone else was just posers.

Gary’s mouth got him into trouble many times. He was a master of hubris, & every time he got out of line, the gamer community reminded him he wasn’t God. The fight over GAMA didn’t end well for him, or for D&D as a brand.

The OGL concept proved to be a brilliant move. It kept D&D relevant & top of the TTRPG market for many years, through lean times & good times. The rising tide of third-party creators tied to the brand lifted all ships.

Hasbro has never put the money & time into the D&D brand that it deserved. Now it appears Hasbro wanted to gobble up the successful business areas that they were too big to worry about before.

You may say now that you will abandon the plans that have riled up your customers — but even if you do a lot of years of trust have been lost. D&D will never regain entirely what they lost in this debacle.

Honestly, this may be good for the game hobby in the long run. It is never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket, but TTRPG fans have been doing just that for years. Now they know the dangers of being shortsighted.

Creators are now likely to be more inclined to diversify and support a wider range of game systems. (The publisher who does not open up and support this is missing a grand opportunity.) The overall market will be stronger for it.

But D&D and WotC aren’t going away, nor does anyone really want that. The brand will survive and even thrive. It just won’t be quite as crushingly dominant as it once was. And that’s OK. Let a million flowers bloom.