Monte Cook makes a statement about the OGL and MCG license

[GMforPowergamers]

"Eating each other" seems a bit much. Green Ronin has shown no obvious desire to destroy Goodman Games who don't seem to have any desire to see Kobold Press disappear from the face of the earth.

They are not in real competition for each other. They're all serving different niches in the broader D&D-like ecosystem.

I can not stress enough, you can like Rifts, D&D, Savage world, TORG, and Vampire all... and the writers of Vampire don't have to wish ill on the writers of TORG... infact they may be the same writers sometimes.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

"Eating each other" seems a bit much. Green Ronin has shown no obvious desire to destroy Goodman Games who don't seem to have any desire to see Kobold Press disappear from the face of the earth.

They are not in real competition for each other. They're all serving different niches in the broader D&D-like ecosystem.

Even if they love each other and always party together after Gencon, if each of those release their d&d alternative sometime next year they'll be competing for the same gamers, and there probably aren't enough of those to go around.

 

[mhd]

Even if they love each other and always party together after Gencon, if each of those release their d&d alternative sometime next year they'll be competing for the same gamers, and there probably aren't enough of those to go around.

"Alternative" is okay, most of them do that already, and most of the industry has been doing that since the 70s.

"D&D successor" would be an issue, but I doubt that any of the game companies would actually try that. It's not a winning strategy, that moment happened once and because of mechanics, not legalities.

 

[Reynard]

Even if they love each other and always party together after Gencon, if each of those release their d&d alternative sometime next year they'll be competing for the same gamers, and there probably aren't enough of those to go around.

They really aren't though. Games generally compete in niches, because gamers that aren't playing D&D are looking for a specific experience and style of game. So Delta Green competes to some degree with Night's Black Agents, but not TORG or ICONS.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They really aren't though. Games generally compete in niches, because gamers that aren't playing D&D are looking for a specific experience and style of game. So Delta Green competes to some degree with Night's Black Agents, but not TORG or ICONS.

Yeah, I have a hard time imagining someone being torn between Fantasy AGE and Dungeon Crawl Classics. Even if they're nominally in the same genre, they're doing very different things.

 

[mamba]

"Alternative" is okay, most of them do that already, and most of the industry has been doing that since the 70s.

"D&D successor" would be an issue, but I doubt that any of the game companies would actually try that. It's not a winning strategy, that moment happened once and because of mechanics, not legalities.

the difference between alternative and successor is the level of success...

 

[mamba]

Yeah, I have a hard time imagining someone being torn between Fantasy AGE and Dungeon Crawl Classics. Even if they're nominally in the same genre, they're doing very different things.

I am torn because I do not know much of either

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They really aren't though. Games generally compete in niches, because gamers that aren't playing D&D are looking for a specific experience and style of game. So Delta Green competes to some degree with Night's Black Agents, but not TORG or ICONS.

Can I take a moment to pimp out TORG...

TORG isn't a game, it's like 8 games hiding in a trench coat. The base game has a setting with 7 or 8 mini settings (depending if you count modern earth) and as such can be anything.

Want a D&D like fantasy game take Aysle and Living Lands and mix them a bit you got it
Want a shadowrun like scifi fantasy hybrid take Pan-Pacifica and Cyberpapyc
Want to run a more urban fantasy take the base earth and work in ANY 1 or 2 other
Want to run super heroes take Nile

I am just now playing with using them as a ruleset to make settings in and finding how versatile it is once you take the metaplot out.

It also is easy to learn for a D&D player... bunch of stats and skills under them, roll a d20 add the skill or stat if you don't have the skill crit on both a nat 10 and nat 20...

now where it is different is that combat is just a skill not it's own system... so melee weapons and hacking are both equal (more like white wolf then D&D) and there are ways to use any skill in combat... I personally played 2 different characters 1 with 0 combat skills (except the reality skill that is like a soak damage roll) and 1 that did have a passing ability to fight and a few spells but both had OTHER options in combat.
ANd the cards...

 

[Staffan]

the writers of Vampire don't have to wish ill on the writers of TORG... infact they may be the same writers sometimes.

True in at least one case: the late Stewart Wieck (one of the co-founders of both White Wolf and later DrivethruRPG) worked on both The Land Below for TORG as well as a number of Vampire books, including Ashes to Ashes and the Player's Guides for both 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

True in at least one case: the late Stewart Wieck (one of the co-founders of both White Wolf and later DrivethruRPG) worked on both The Land Below for TORG as well as a number of Vampire books, including Ashes to Ashes and the Player's Guides for both 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions.

I didn't know that. I used the two as a random example... but now I am sad because I just looked him up and found how tragic it was. I own multi books he worked on... although I can't put my finger on his exact work on them, and I did not know his name by memory yesterday, that was a major loss to the community.