Can 3.5 cut WOTC Connections?

[Sigurd]

(There is no axe to grind for WOTC here, just a question)

My personal bias is that I'd love to see a shared system with lots of company and user input. To me, that gives lots of creativity and writing space for good works. Of course businesses need sales and sales need a growing body of customers.

My question is: Can the 3.5 publishers (re)embrace the OGL and disregard 4.0?

What could they do in collaboration to promote and expand the OGL customer base?

Are there any other feasible alternatives?


Sigurd

[Darrin Drader]

Originally Posted by Sigurd

My question is: Can the 3.5 publishers (re)embrace the OGL and disregard 4.0?

Sure, it's simple. Publishers in general need to put their heads together and choose to embrace one or two variants of the OGL D20 rules, such as Pathfinder and True20 (Personally, I'd go Pathfinder for my fantasy games and True20 for eveything else.

What could they do in collaboration to promote and expand the OGL customer base?

I think Paizo is doing it by engaging the existing player base in the creation of the new dominant form of the rules. They aren't going to be able to match WotC dollar for dollar in advertising, so any form of competing product will have to spread through limited advertising and word of mouth. That means that it will have to address some of the shortcomings of the existing system. For instance, painful to create and painful to use stat blocks should go in favor of ones that leave a smaller footprint without compromising the core material (so for instance, get rid of spellbooks, stop printing the variant barbarian stats after rage goes into effects, etc.), make the game scale better at higher levels and overhaul epic so that it doesn't become a superheroes game.

[quote]Are there any other feasible alternatives?

Sure, get a publisher to create a new system that will be completely open (no strings attached) without using the OGL, and then get a number of tier 2 publishers such as Paizo to sign on saying that they will adopt the new system.

Unfortunately I don't see option 1 happening since all the sudden it seems that everyone is making their own D20 variant, and I don't see #3 happening since such things have been suggested before, and rejected.

[mhensley]

Originally Posted by Whisperfoot

Sure, it's simple. Publishers in general need to put their heads together and choose to embrace one or two variants of the OGL D20 rules, such as Pathfinder and True20 (Personally, I'd go Pathfinder for my fantasy games and True20 for eveything else.

Why do they have to embrace a variant d20 rules system? Why not just continue using the d20 SRD?

[Bacris]

Because the base Core books for it are out of print - True20 and Pathfinder will be available in printed medium.

[afstanton]

There is literally no reason at all that a company couldn't print up the SRD as a set of core books, even going so far as to order the text in the exact same fashion as what already exists.

Hell, didn't Mongoose do that?

[EP]

Originally Posted by afstanton

There is literally no reason at all that a company couldn't print up the SRD as a set of core books, even going so far as to order the text in the exact same fashion as what already exists.

That'll probably be more common now in any "core" setting or expansion material using OGL. Since there won't be official core books to pick up, why not just produce the material yourself within your own original ideas?

But for that very reason, you'll never see a unified OGL system for 3pp. Some may use the same, sure, but there's a reason why everyone started creating their own version of d20 and it's the same reason why there will never be a constant OGL version - we all have our own views on how the game should be played and like to come up with material to suit that system. I'm an Iron Heroes man, for example, but Defence rolls are not for everyone.

[Voadam]

Originally Posted by afstanton

There is literally no reason at all that a company couldn't print up the SRD as a set of core books, even going so far as to order the text in the exact same fashion as what already exists.

Hell, didn't Mongoose do that?

True.

Mongoose did it with their pocket series.

A number of publishers have put out pdfs of the srd.

A publisher could even turn it all into one big core book instead of three.

It would be missing character stat generation stuff, xp award rules, advancement instructions, and starting gold info but otherwise you have most everything for a complete core D&D game (minus the nonOGC monsters and gods).

[Prest0]

Originally Posted by Sigurd[B

My question is: Can the 3.5 publishers (re)embrace the OGL and disregard 4.0?[/b]

What could they do in collaboration to promote and expand the OGL customer base?

Are there any other feasible alternatives?

It's kinda up to the customers. If customers demonstrate a willingness to keep buying 3.5 material, then publishers will fill that niche. If not, publishers won't have much choise but to move on to greener pastures.

The "OGL" customer base is anyone who already owns 3.5, which is a heck of a lot more players than ones who own 4.0. Expanding it isn't the problem. Getting them to try books not published by WotC is the problem, and it'll be the same problem with 4E.

[afstanton]

Originally Posted by Voadam

True.

Mongoose did it with their pocket series.

A number of publishers have put out pdfs of the srd.

A publisher could even turn it all into one big core book instead of three.

It would be missing character stat generation stuff, xp award rules, advancement instructions, and starting gold info but otherwise you have most everything for a complete core D&D game (minus the nonOGC monsters and gods).

You could certainly add the chargen and xp stuff in, as that's only required to be excluded by the d20 STL, and that's going bye-bye. Obviously, you can't add WotC's PI monsters and gods, but there's no reason you couldn't include a base public domain pantheon or 2.

[Arkhandus]

Except that those parts of the PHB and DMG are not Open Game Content, so you'd have to include a different set of chargen/XP rules of your own making. For instance, in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, the level advancement table has slightly different XP values and such.

[Bacris]

Originally Posted by Arkhandus

Except that those parts of the PHB and DMG are not Open Game Content, so you'd have to include a different set of chargen/XP rules of your own making. For instance, in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, the level advancement table has slightly different XP values and such.

Exactly.

The SRD doesn't have everything needed to play. It has almost everything needed. At that point, it becomes a variant, so you have to pick one. If you already HAVE to make a variant, why not go with an established line?

[Alzrius]

I wonder if you could reprint the XP table without penalty. I mean, the values there are derived from a rather straightforward mathematical formula - there's no way that's subject to any sort of copyright, and the table seems too simple to even fall under the "artful presentation" of game rules. And I know I've seen stand-alone OGL products that included character-generation rules that were (very nearly) identical to what we have in the PHB.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that these are non-issues.

[dmccoy1693]

Originally Posted by Alzrius

I wonder if you could reprint the XP table without penalty.

I remember PapersAndPaychecks commenting that tables in 1E created from mathematical formulas could be copied wholesale into OSRIC while those that were based upon arbitrary numbers had to be changed some.

Having said that, if I were making a 3.5 variant, I'd change the XP table.

[rgard]

Originally Posted by Alzrius

I wonder if you could reprint the XP table without penalty. I mean, the values there are derived from a rather straightforward mathematical formula - there's no way that's subject to any sort of copyright, and the table seems too simple to even fall under the "artful presentation" of game rules. And I know I've seen stand-alone OGL products that included character-generation rules that were (very nearly) identical to what we have in the PHB.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that these are non-issues.

I think you can. I just looked at my Mongoose Conan RPG (Atlantean) and found the experience point progression table to be identical in so far as the xps needed to advance a level are the same. They did use 2.5 and the like instead of 2 1/2 (cross class skills column.)

IIRC, you couldn't reproduce the experience point table and use the d20 license. You could use the table if it was just OGL and not labeled with the d20 license.

Thanks,
Rich

[Nadaka]

You can not copyright, patent or trademark a mathematical formula. Nor can you copyright, patent or trademark the most basic expressions of the values of that formula.

So:

           n
xp = sigma((level-1)*1000)
       level=1

represents the number of xp needed to reach level n level.

Expressed in a table

xp	level
0	1
1000	2
3000	3
6000	4
1000	5
15000	6
21000	7
.	.
.	.
.	.

[dmccoy1693]

Originally Posted by Arkhandus

Except that those parts of the PHB and DMG are not Open Game Content, so you'd have to include a different set of chargen/XP rules of your own making. For instance, in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, the level advancement table has slightly different XP values and such.

Originally Posted by Bacris

Exactly.

The SRD doesn't have everything needed to play. It has almost everything needed. At that point, it becomes a variant, so you have to pick one. If you already HAVE to make a variant, why not go with an established line?

Not just an established line but an established name from a company with major print capabilities, major distribution capabilities, and serious name recognition. I mean Joe Schmoe's Publishing can put out "Joe Schmoe's 3.5 SRD", but no one will buy it because no one knows the name, no one knows the quality, it'll probably only be found at DTRPG, and the company will be simply written off as another fantasy heartbreak.

Paizo is the 3rd largest game company in the industry, has a loyal and devoted fanbase (who are mostly OGL believers and less "WotC-only Tables"), and the PfRPG will be carried in LGSs. Random people will be alot more willing to try your product with the PfRPG logo on your product then Joe Schmoe's logo.