D&D 5E Jonathan Tweet & Rob Heinsoo: Making their own 5th Edition?

Leif · Apr 10, 2012

BTW, Mark, what do you know about Pelgrane Press? I guess it's a foregone conclusion that WotC won't be using the publishing services of Paizo, but are they just choosing another start-up or lesser-known publisher, or is Pelgrane an in-house organ for WotC?

Droogie128 · Apr 10, 2012

Kalontas said:
I think they're trying to pull off "PF for 4E", i.e. the big competition pulling on the tradition of old edition. Not going to happen.

No, they're actually looking to start from scratch and apply years of game design knowledge across multiple systems to design something new off of the same foundation, fixing the flaws of the older design.

This is instead of applying some duct tape and painting over it, leaving lots of rust holes still visible.

Mark CMG · Apr 10, 2012

Leif said:
BTW, Mark, what do you know about Pelgrane Press? I guess it's a foregone conclusion that WotC won't be using the publishing services of Paizo, but are they just choosing another start-up or lesser-known publisher, or is Pelgrane an in-house organ for WotC?

Oh, I know of no direct ties between Pelgrane and WotC. I'm sure it's its own entity. Here's their About page -

Pelgrane Press Ltd About us

Leif · Apr 10, 2012

Mark CMG said:
Oh, I know of no direct ties between Pelgrane and WotC. I'm sure it's its own entity. Here's their About page -

Pelgrane Press Ltd About us

Thanks for the link. Not too much there that hasn't already been discussed here.

But it does make pretty clear that Pelgrane is a totally independent entity. Some of the personnel listed have ties to other gaming publishers, like Chaosium and Steve Jackson Games.

Morrus · Apr 10, 2012

Leif said:
BTW, Mark, what do you know about Pelgrane Press? I guess it's a foregone conclusion that WotC won't be using the publishing services of Paizo, but are they just choosing another start-up or lesser-known publisher, or is Pelgrane an in-house organ for WotC?

This game has nothing to do with WotC, except that it's being written by two ex-employees. Pelgrane is not connected to WotC.

WotC_Trevor · Apr 11, 2012

Mark CMG said:
The very idea that the OGL issue isn't a design and development question is very sad.

I didn't mean to imply that the OGL topic isn't something that the R&D team is/will be/would be involved with. I only meant to say that it's not all about game design and we're not at the point where we're ready to talk about those sorts of plans.

TarionzCousin · Apr 11, 2012

RoboCheney said:
Color me interested . . .

We'll call that Eager Orange.

What color should "Maybe/I'm not ruling it out yet" be?

FunkBGR · Apr 11, 2012

Pelgrane Press has been producing games using Robin Law's GUMSHOE system for some time, so they're nothing new. They make great stuff, so count me in as one that's super excited to see 13th Age.

Mark CMG · Apr 11, 2012

WotC_Trevor said:
I didn't mean to imply that the OGL topic isn't something that the R&D team is/will be/would be involved with. I only meant to say that it's not all about game design and we're not at the point where we're ready to talk about those sorts of plans.

I completely understand your position. Of course my point being that the communal nature of the OGL makes it an integral part of game design if it is indeed to be utilized to its fullest. I'm sure it's beyond the ability of the designers to make any use of it at all if management and legal aren't on board. It's a darn shame and likely to harm the process if those ducks can't be lined up in short order. It might already be too late to really leverage its full potential. We will see.