D&D 5e: GOING OGL!!!

A great website... for me to poop on!

A new year has come, and I am finally over the rush of the holidays that have kept me away for so long. I was thinking of something to post about and had a few ideas, then today came and something struck like lightning out of the blue: D&D 5e has been released as an SRD under the Open Game License (OGL), the same OGL version 1a that Pathfinder uses.

Last time, back in the third edition days, d20 products were coming fast and furious and then took a dive in sales. Companies over committed to it, and good products were hard to find in a sea of crap. It made some smaller publishers big (Green Ronin), some other made great product but it undersold (Atlas Games), and some companies crashed and burned.

Pathfinder, an OGL game, has had more success with other company's products. This is because the industry learned its lesson and only a few companies are in the market, and they are nor riding a bubble that will crash, but are making their plans realistic. The general quality has been pretty good.

Well, Wizards of the Coast is implementing a way to lessen the crap. First, you can make D&D 5e compatible products and sell them yourself, like the old days. The other way to do it is sell it through the Dungeon Master's Guild, an official WotC online shop on DriveThruRPG. If you go it alone you may not seem as legit as selling through the guild, as the guild has a rating method to give buyers an idea of quality, lacking if you publish on your own. This makes working outside the Guild seem a little less legit.

Also, the Guild let's you write adventures in The Forgotten Realms, which is a vibrant world people love. Pathfinder's world, Golarion, it their own property and outsiders cannot write adventures in that world. The downside is that the selling on the Dungeon Master's Guild mean you have to share profits with WotC. The advantages may be worth it, we shall see.

Get to the guild HERE.