Man, I’m sitting here in the shadow of my wife’s d20 collection, thinking that the odds of me dying from an open source avalanche are far greater than dying from a transportation accident or health-related issue (especially now that Harvard says fat butts guard against disease!). I’m looking at a very large bookshelf that has approximately 700 d20 books on it, as well as a shelf with boxes and bags full of dice, stacks of rubber banded cards (probably Paizo’s adventure cards), and a bunch of tech, language, and world-building books. Next to it is a half shelf with every issue of 3e Dragon and Dungeon magazines. Stacked on top are some heavy board games (Descent and Battue).
Upstairs we just built two new shelves to hold books, and most of them turned out to be overflow gaming books from downstairs. I think our entire run of GURPS 4e and the Conan RPG are up there, along with all of the duplicates I brought to the marriage. There’s also my Battletech collection and a ton of other game books and boxes up there as well.
Looking at this shelf (really looking UP at the shelf, sweating as it looms like a monster) I suppose one could say it was inevitable that we weren’t going to make the switch to 4e, but especially her. She’s never played any edition previous to 4e (other than a 1e game I ran at Gencon), and so wasn’t ready for a change. My stacks of 1e and 2e didn’t stop me from switching to 3e, so I’m not opposed to change. Open Gaming is really what attracted me to 3e, and the sheer volume of awesome, playable material really has done its job on me. I think if the OGL had never existed I probably would have been able to get past 4e’s flaws and give it a shot, but the can’s been opened, and for me there’s no going back forward.
Update: Apparently I offended my wife by not mentioning the two shelves of adventure modules and box sets that completely dominate the storage in our entertainment center. I’ve hauled and stacked those several times when the apparatus needed to be moved, and let me tell you…that’s a whole lotta adventure. I’d guess there are easily 200 modules there and a dozen or more box sets.
9:29 pm on January 7th, 2009 1
Hear, hear. I am not the biggest fan of OGL, but it’s loads better than the current publishing license. I’ll be switching to Pathfinder.
10:24 pm on January 7th, 2009 2
Man, it’s so nice to see an RPG blogger with principles! I feel much as you seem to about 4E’s abandonment of open gaming. It’s really too bad WotC felt they needed to take D&D in the direction they did.
12:21 am on January 8th, 2009 3
700 books…wow!
I’d say you’ve got a nice OGL investment. I understand why you guys would stand pat.
I’m not thrilled with the GSL, either. There’s supposed to be a revision soon, but it would have to be a heck of a revision to make me happy.
1:11 am on January 8th, 2009 4
Yeah, I don’t think the revision is going to be acceptable. The difference in focus between the OGL and GSL can’t be overstated.
And 700 is just the rough estimate of those that are trying to kill me, I’d say it’s well over 1,000 when all are accounted for.
10:31 am on January 8th, 2009 5
You didn’t offend me, dear. I just didn’t want you to understate the depth of my obsession, er, fondness for 3e/OGL games. And the shocking thing is, I don’t own more than 70% of what was published under the d20 license.
Look at it this way, though. 4e has saved us a lot of money, because I’m no longer spending $200+ each month on gaming books.
11:20 am on January 8th, 2009 6
Now if you ever want to part with your 1E stuff… yannow, to make room for the Pathfinder books…
11:29 am on January 8th, 2009 7
LOL! Well, my 1e books were a present from a friend (last summer) so I’d never part with them, even though I’ll never run a 1e game and probably only play in one shots if this same dear friend of ours runs a game at GenCon for us.
And I have about 2 feet of shelf space for Pathfinder to grow into, thank you very much.
12:13 am on January 27th, 2009 8
You’ll need them to play in Castle Greyhawk at GenCon this year, I think