Cobwebbed Dragon wrote:
The Open Gaming Licence works because D&D is already popular and I think something similar for Dragon Warriors is likely to destroy what makes it special - without someone at the helm navigating the creative direction of the game to maintain that fragile
something about Legend that makes the world still stand out after several decades, it would just become yet another old-school game that flashes in the pan to become quickly lost and forgotten.
D&D allows people to play fantasy superheroes, DW does not; and I think that is why D&D is more popular.
Part of me kinda likes how there're fewer than 20-or-so of us passionate fans left - makes me feel special to be part of such a select group of clearly-superior individuals
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If there's only 20 or so passionate fans left, I'd suggest that the game is already largely lost and forgotten.
I think it makes sense to separate old school D&D from later editions because old school D&D is much closer to DW when it comes to lethality and because neither receive much support from the companies that hold the copyrights on the games. If one does that, and then compares the vibrancy of the OSR gaming scene to that around DW, there's no contest between the two. Old school D&D gets dramatically more support from the community around it. I don't think that has to do with superiority of mechanics, or flavor, or anything else regarding the games themselves - DW has a lot to recommend it in all of those regards.
The reason DW lacks a similar vibrancy, I think, is that players are limited in terms of how they can contribute creatively to the game, and that in turn squashes its growth. While free resources published online are fine, the OSR has blossomed largely due to the small scale commercial efforts of individuals, whether through traditional publishing, print-on-demand services, crowdfunding projects, etc. Prohibiting players from raising funds for a project limits the quality of the artwork and other production values that can go into them, and makes the distribution of physical copies (which are still highly sought after) very difficult.
I can't imagine that opening up DW would dilute it. After all, if the audience is so small to begin with, what is there to dilute? The only way to go from here seems to be up, but it's hard to see that happening unless third parties grow the player base through the publishing of top notch supplemental materials.