With the recent strangeness around the OGL it's been a time of contemplation and planning changes.
A Quick Take on the OGL
I was one of those around for the switch from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2e to Dungeons and Dragons 3E in 2000. I even flew across the Pond (Atlantic) to US Gen Con and queued up for my Player's Handbook signed by Gygax and Arneson.
And also around for the introduction of the OGL and glut of d20 related sourcebooks (many of them not great) which flooded the market for 3 years until D&D 3.5 changed everything again.
So it was a surprise when the current incarnation of Wizards tried to de-authorise the OGL and all the subsequent shenanigans around backtracking, alternate licenses and new rpgs emerging.
Whatever the case, trust has been shattered and many creators have lost the appetite to play, create for or support D&D for the foreseeable future.
Fantasy Generators and System Neutral Tables
And so the focus of Chaos Gen and Rand Roll will be on Fantasy Generators over at Chaos Gen. And system-neutral random tables over at DriveThruRpg and Itch.io, starting with a slew of Fantasy Encounter Tables because they are easy for me to do.
The D&D Generators on Chaos Gen will remain but I don't plan extra work on them or any generators for the next version of D&D. The gens will benefit from the improvements and continuing development of the Fantasy Gens (as they share many parts). But any updates will be haphazard at best.
For my DM's Guild Titles there are three collaborations to publish and possible one other standalone and then that's probably it. DM's Guild has been a great place to learn about publishing and what works for me in publishing titles and random tables.
The random tables on Rand Roll will be primarily system neutral, although many of the Generator Guides and PDF Guides will still have some D&D sections.
Supporting Many Fantasy RPGs
But now it's time to move over fully to titles are useful for many different fantasy rpgs. From Pathfinder to Savage Worlds (fantasy), Warlock! or something OSR. Genesys, Ironsworn, WFRP, Fantasy AGE, Knave or the new Kobold game. Or D&D.
Future titles for random tables covering areas such as Encounters, One-Shots, Character Creation, Treasures, NPCs, Adventure Locations and Adventuring Parties. Many built around the Six Environments. And some of those will be larger titles, building on the experience of Collected Encounters.
There may also be space for a particular type of British fantasy as shown by Fighting Fantasy, WFRP, Warlock!, Dragon Warriors, Troika and other games. That's something I'll be exploring for sure on Rand Roll blog posts and hopefully some (British-inspired) system-neutral titles.
It would be great to build some more system-specific generators, whether that is a monster generator for Warlock!, chargen for Knave, a full encounter generator for Pathfinder 2E or Solo rpg support. Let's see what looks like fun to build.
Finishing Up
Many of these changes were planned anyway. Recent events have brought them forward or clarified them.
Happy gaming and creating!
Duncan
