(Note: The following contribution was by Mike "Sieg" Stewart ; I personally was late getting to Gary's talk, so Mike has a better perspective on the whole than do)
Well since I finally
made it back here I'll give a few comments on what Gary said and DD can fill in
the gaps...
Basically, he reiterated his opposition to the OGL and noted its problems
regarding the property of D&D. Not only does the OGL prevent quality control
(one quote ran something like "instead of 20 good modules you end up with 200
crappy ones") and noted the pervasive loss of control Hasbro has experienced
with it. Indeed, he mentioned that a lawyer associate of his speculated that
much of the SRD is now 'public domain' in every sense of the word, and much
that's not SRD might have slipped into that state as well.
He also dismissed card games as a 'threat' to RPGs. His opinion was that the
biggest threat to the P&p industry were computer games. However, he noted that
p&p isn't doomed; that the RPG entertainment genre is dividing as follows:
Multi-Player Online Games are becoming the "Television" of RPG entertainment. I
assume from this he meant huge audience but mediocre quality.
PC Computer games are the "Motion Pictures" of RPGs; Higher quality than MPOG
but smaller audience.
Paper & Pen tabletop games are the "Broadway/theatre" of RPGs; that is, small
audience but much higher quality.
I tend to agree with the above assessment. Especially since it puts us p&p
gamers in a quite favorable light!
He also commented on the 'rules intensiveness' of today's RPGs and how he
believes rules-light systems will return in popularity.
Oh, and a guy kept rambling at him about "Drag-eenz"!
Photographs