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

Alphastream said:

Are you sure you aren't just reflecting your pro-OGL bias?

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Yes, I am sure that one of the objective benefits of the OGL is the 12 year pool of OGC and that if a company is going to use the OGL on a project they curtail that benefit by not using the OGL form the outset. Do you understand that objective point?

As to your conjecture regarding revenues for WotC, and their use of the OGL, it's pretty plain that their most popular edition in recent memory was an OGL product and that they utilized the OGL less and less as they got deeper into the edition. WotC revenues spike and coincide with their OGL use and falls off as they distance themselves from the OGL in the latter end of the 3.XE period. Can one say the revenues correlate? Maybe. But one cannot claim that they are conflicting.

Great news. I have to say I'm much more excited about this, than 5E.
I feel 5E is too much 0E, which was outdated well before I even know that RPGs exists.

Mark CMG said:

Yes, I am sure that one of the objective benefits of the OGL is the 12 year pool of OGC and that if a company is going to use the OGL on a project they curtail that benefit by not using the OGL form the outset. Do you understand that objective point?

As to your conjecture regarding revenues for WotC, and their use of the OGL, it's pretty plain that their most popular edition in recent memory was an OGL product and that they utilized the OGL less and less as they got deeper into the edition. WotC revenues spike and coincide with their OGL use and falls off as they distance themselves from the OGL in the latter end of the 3.XE period. Can one say the revenues correlate? Maybe. But one cannot claim that they are conflicting.

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There's an alternate conclusion one could draw from that.

WotC's sales fall off when another company uses the OGL to create a major rival game and tempt their customers away. Ergo OGL bad.

I don't know which opinion WotC currently holds. I hope it's your opinion; I worry it might the one I just posted.

What we do know is that two of the main architects of 5E are Mike Mearls and Monte Cook. And we know that the OGL has been very good to both of them in the past. With luck, that means that they are naturally inclined to support it.

Edited. Subject dealt with up-thread.

Morrus said:

There's an alternate conclusion one could draw from that.

WotC's sales fall off when another company uses the OGL to create a major rival game and tempt their customers away. Ergo OGL bad.

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That might seem like a viable alternate conclusion unless one realizes that there are a lot of companies out there using the OGL but only one is overtaking WotC in the market. Then one is forced to examine why Paizo is the only one overtaking WotC. The reasons Paizo does so well have a lot more to do with the high quality of their work and the fact that it is primarily made up of former WotC employees from the 3.XE era. Couple that with the apparent fact that at least half the 3.XE market wasn't interested in 4.XE, or at least not interested in moving on from a 3.XE-like product line. I'd imagine WotC might have kept the half of the market it lost if (alongside 4.XE) they had kept a team of those particular employees working on 3.XE, made a few tweaks to the 3.XE ruleset, and put out some of the best adventures for 3.XE that anyone had seen. WotC's problem isn't the OGL, though not using the OGL is problematic for them. Pointing at the OGL to explain the existence of Paizo is blaming the wrong bogeyman.

In regard to the existence of Paizo, WotC's problem is their business model which requires them to cyclically lay off employees who obviously are going to continue to stay in the business. If you don't think that Paizo would have found another way to please folks not interested in 4.XE then you're underestimating that team of mostly former WotC employees. From the inside it appears WotC's business model brings in talent, puts it to work for a while, and then cuts it when it is cheaper to bring in mostly new talent to work alongside a few promoted veterans. From the outside it appears their business model brings in talent, cultivates it, annoints it by giving the individuals name recognition in the marketplace, then gets rid of the majoirty of the talent in a near-yearly series of lay offs for cost-cutting reasons. This last part is very important. These employees are in no way being called incompetent or deficient in any way. In fact, almost across the board these are talented people at the top of their game, many of whom lose their WotC position not long after being promoted. About the only way WotC could make the competition stiffer would be if their HR Director was in touch weekly with the Paizo HR Director to make sure they knew which 401K packages might need transferring soon. When it comes to Paizo, WotC has 99 problems and the OGL ain't one.

So, the OGL isn't really a problem for WotC but, if they are smart, it might be what keeps WotC from losing the rest of the market to the shop they helped set up down the street. It might also help if Hasbro stops using WotC as a training facility for Paizo and the rest of the industry. But large companies and corporations aren't that nimble when it comes to adjusting their business models. It is fully possible for many good people to realize what is wrong with their organization and have no power to change a thing, essentially becoming a knowing witness as they engineer their own train wreck.

I dunno, giving a company like Paizo access to your IP via the OGL is like giving Bruce Lee a pair of nunchuks and shouting "Have at me, knave!" You're just begging for an ass-kicking. I can kind of see WotC's perspective on this one.

Griego said:

I dunno, giving a company like Paizo access to your IP via the OGL is like giving Bruce Lee a pair of nunchuks and shouting "Have at me, knave!" You're just begging for an ass-kicking. I can kind of see WotC's perspective on this one.

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We don't know their perspective. The problem wasn't sharing IP, which worked great as long as WotC was selling 3.XE and leveraging the OGL to its fullest (something they curtailed a year or so after releasing 3.5E), the problem was moving away from the OGL while simultaneously creating Paizo by stripping away your own talent pool and trying to push a market away from 3.XE when it apparently wasn't ready. To blame the OGL for WotC's problem, you'd have to also believe that Paizo isn't as talented, that 4.XE is clearly a far better game than 3.XE, and that the customer base won't play what they prefer to play. You'd basically have to believe that without the OGL Paizo wouldn't be doing as well it is, 4E would have twice the market share it has, and al of the customers playing PF or sticking with 3.XE would have moved on to 4.XE instead of merely sticking with 3.XE as their game of choice. I don't believe any of those things.

Abandoning the basic 3.5/OGL game is what hurt them most, IMO.

Since they abandoned it, now lots of publishers have their own version of D&D. Great for the consumer - not so great for WotC. Indeed, WotC is not needed anymore to play D&D.

The irony is, anything they come up with for 5E can probably be copied using the OGL & SRD. They almost have to make it open because, well, it will be open anyway.

Morrus said:

What we do know is that two of the main architects of 5E are Mike Mearls and Monte Cook. And we know that the OGL has been very good to both of them in the past. With luck, that means that they are naturally inclined to support it.

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I can agree with this regarding Mike Mearls. Monte's products were possibly the most restrictive in terms of OGL content and his declarations of OGC were laughable. I quit buying his products because they were so flagrantly anti-OGL in spirit.

As far as WotC, I've posted my opinion in another thread. I don't see WotC going OGL with 5e. They'll use a slightly more open version of the GSL, to encourage supplementary products, but discourage replacements.

Also, I completely agree with Mark CMG. If they haven't made a commitment to the OGL now, they've walled off 12 years and uncountable pages of potential design from their own use, and once again created a condition that management would see as "giving away" their IP, were they to implement the OGL.

And on topic, I'm very interested in 13th Age, and looking forward to it.

DaveMage said:

Abandoning the basic 3.5/OGL game is what hurt them most, IMO.

Since they abandoned it, now lots of publishers have their own version of D&D. Great for the consumer - not so great for WotC. Indeed, WotC is not needed anymore to play D&D.

The irony is, anything they come up with for 5E can probably be copied using the OGL & SRD. They almost have to make it open because, well, it will be open anyway.

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I've been waiting for them to announce something like an OGL 2.0, under which they can release new OGC or use old OGC. The previous OGL versions couldn't use the new OGC since it would be released under the OGL 2.0 and they could add some new minor wrinkles to the OGL 2.0 without going toward the troublesome GSL they tried to introduce last time around. And, of course, they could release a new d20 system trademark license to give added incentive to follow some eatra rules not in the OGL 2.0. Unfortunaately, by not doing that early on, they hobble themselves in terms of OGL benefits and they also don't have the 3PP oars rowing in the same direction nor anywhere near as many of them as they would have at this stage. They're being cagey and it's costing them in time, probably money, and certainly goodwill.