Quote from: Lawbag;492511Whilst its clear that the Swine and the Forge have harmed internal perceptions of gaming, instead I put it to you that the OGL and subsequent glut of D20 games and products did more harm to RPG than good, even more so than the damage that the Forge did.

QuotePlaying: Nothing
Running: Nothing
Planning: pathfinder amongst other things

Hang on...you play Pathfinder, but you think the OGL is evil?

I suppose it might be arguable that the need to escape 3rd party reproducibility was one of the big drivers behind the huge rebuild of the D&D system between 3E and 4E and hence something behind the eternal flamewars.

Oh, and on the 70s RPGs list, not sure if I'd count Monsters! Monsters! as a separate game, it basically just uses the regular T&T rules.

Quote from: Lawbag;492517Nintendo learnt this to their detriment in the early 1990s with their SNES Console. The console became home to some of the worst examples of licensed games glut, all of which bore Nintendo's proud Seal of Approval. In reality all the seal meant was the game wouldn't crash and was 100% compatible with the SNES rather than some dodgy knock off.

Reality check.  Nintendo single-handedly saved the console-game industry from the glut (and actual crash in the 80s) with that seal.  

If you think there was a "glut" during the NES and SNES era, it was nothing compared to the shitfest of horrible, unplayable shit that came out in the 80s.

Not that I think it's even comparable to d20 -- I don't think there are many similarities at all, really, considering how much easier it was to slap a d20 on your game than it was to get a Nintendo seal.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;492752Oh, and on the 70s RPGs list, not sure if I'd count Monsters! Monsters! as a separate game, it basically just uses the regular T&T rules.

There are heaps of borderline calls like this. OD&D vs B/X D&D vs AD&D1e, how about all the editions of Traveller? And then is Fantasy Hero a different game to Star Hero? If base rules + different setting with rules for that different setting counts as a different rpg, then GURPS has made about 200 rpgs. And today it's even more complicated, because what about the retroclones?

It gets pretty muddled. But however you want to split things up categorically, the point remains: this hobby was founded by incompetent amateurs. We should embrace this fact. After all, every GM who made their own setting and house rules is... an incompetent amateur.

The roleplaying game hobby was founded and is carried on by incompetent amateurs. This is what makes it GREAT.

Quote from: CRKrueger;492724Most people don't know about the Forge true, but game designers do.  Forge thought had an impact both on 4e D&D as well as WFRP3, and at least in my opinion, both games suffered severely from that influence.

This I do agree with. My impression of 4e is they built it around a gamist approach (i've even seen some 4e fans praise it for doing so). I think previous editions made much more balance things out (mechanics were important but so was flavor and so was believability) and with 4e they adopted the focused design approach of places like the forge.

Quote from: Lawbag;492517Suddenly any person with Microsoft WORD and a PDF writer could suddenly release a module or a supplement and they did.

You say this as if it was a bad thing.

Quote from: CRKrueger;492724Most people don't know about the Forge true, but game designers do.  Forge thought had an impact both on 4e D&D as well as WFRP3, and at least in my opinion, both games suffered severely from that influence.

Great point. Your typical gamer knows nothing about the Forge, but a lot of game designers do. The Forge, for better or worse, has had an impact, if indirectly, on the hobby. Not as much as d20 or Vampire, but it's there.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;492752Hang on...you play Pathfinder, but you think the OGL is evil?

Coffee everywhere. LMAO.

Quote from: RandallS;492751Threads like this one always confuse me. I see many posts talking about "the hobby" when as far as I can tell they are really talking about "the industry."

 To me, "the hobby" is PLAYING RPGs, not publishing RPGS or selling RPGs ("the industry"). While the OGL version of D&D might have somehow hurt "the industry", I can't see how they hurt "the hobby" given that the OGL and the glut of OGL material published did not affect anyone's ability to play whatever RPG they wanted to play. Therefore, it did no damage to "the hobby" that I can see. Likewise, The Forge did not damage "the hobby".

RPG forums are not reality. They are participatory theme parks.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;492800RPG forums are not reality. They are participatory theme parks.

QFT. I never browse TheRPGsite without stopping by and picking up a funnel cake first.

Quote from: Peregrin;492754Reality check.  Nintendo single-handedly saved the console-game industry from the glut (and actual crash in the 80s) with that seal.  

If you think there was a "glut" during the NES and SNES era, it was nothing compared to the shitfest of horrible, unplayable shit that came out in the 80s.

Not that I think it's even comparable to d20 -- I don't think there are many similarities at all, really, considering how much easier it was to slap a d20 on your game than it was to get a Nintendo seal.

Just going by memory here but I think you are right about the 80s part of it. Before NES came out you either had atari, coleco or intellivision (and the big problem with those devices was they broke ALL THE TIME), if I recall. When NES came out it was a major shift and I distinctly remember the quality of games going way up (though there was a lack of some of the more experimental games you had on the older systems).

I never really noticed any glut. What I did notice was NSES was a little late to the party and that Genesis ended up being the more popular system (at least where I lived). I really don't think it was the quality of games that drove genesis sales (since I found NSES games to be just as, if not more, well done).

As for d20, I am not convinced it harmed the hobby or the industry. The d20 boom was a great time to be a gamer (though it did get old after a while and it is nice now to have more non-d20 games on the market again). If you played 3E there was a product for every conceivable need. Sure the quality varied, but even junk products yielded some value in my experience. The only problem with the d20 boom was if you didn't like 3E or if you just wanted a little more variety.

Despite being a detractor of D&D, d20, and all that, I find it very hard to believe that d20 damaged the industry or the hobby.