D&D 4E Would you buy 4E if it were not open/had no licenses for 3rd party companies?

Grossout · Apr 1, 2008

I'm looking forward to 3rd party adventure modules and monster books. The only "player option" stuff I anticipate buying will be from WoTC.

Lord Fyre · Apr 1, 2008

A great majority appear to be willing to buy into 4th Edition without any outside support. I am quite surprised at the magnitude of "pro-WoTC" feeling. :uhoh:

Voss · Apr 1, 2008

Lord Fyre said:
A great majority appear to be willing to buy into 4th Edition without any outside support. I am quite surprised at the magnitude of "pro-WoTC" feeling.

I wouldn't call it 'pro-WotC' feeling, necessarily. That isn't being measured by the poll. It would, for example, be equally valid to call it 'anti-3rd party' feeling, but I seriously doubt that is driving people either.

Since I voted for closed, I'll offer up my view- I just don't care about third party material one way or the other. I doubt I'll care much about future WotC products either. I certainly won't be buying into the online... stuff, or most of the future books, unless they really, really impress me. And by really impress, I mean reverse the impression I have of 3e splatbooks- 20% useful material, 80% garbage. If they can switch those numbers around, then I'd buy them.

HeinorNY · Apr 1, 2008

Lord Fyre said:
A great majority appear to be willing to buy into 4th Edition without any outside support. I am quite surprised at the magnitude of "pro-WoTC" feeling.

As someone who voted for the third option, it's more of a "pro-Quality", "pro-Balanced" and "pro-Core" feeling in my case.

stripes · Apr 1, 2008

Roman said:
Please vote on the poll and elaborate on your thoughts in the thread.

"No 3rd party content" means a return to the "Bad Old Days" where TSR made D&D adventures (aka modules), and others did only at their extreme peril. Frequently going so far as to not stat monsters, or make similar sounding monsters with similar stats. Sometimes in a similar sounding system.

So you wouldn't be able to buy a Dungeon Crawl Classic from Goodman Games, or an Adventure Path from Piazo (even if they wanted to make them), nor from Necro.

That would be very sad, and I'm not likely to buy 4e if it turns out to be the case. By "not likely" I mean "Can I get my pre-order money back? Store credit would be fine." And "I'm unlikely to buy it later either, I remember the dark days, I know how that movie ends, I didn't like it last time, and I'm not going to like it this time either."

You also couldn't buy a set of new monsters (which sounds like fun!), or magic items, or spells, or whatever. I don't really do this very often, and would miss it more in the abstract then in reality. That sort of restriction would make me think twice about buying 4e, but wouldn't be an absolute bar.

This would also make me sad. I might cancel my pre-order. In fact I'm likely to do so, but may or may not buy it in 6 to 8 months depending on how things work out.

If it is "just" that you can't break apart the game and rebuild it from the ground up and make something like Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, then that's not such a good thing, but I never bought those books anyway. It would make me a little sad that such freedom is gone from the world, but it won't slow down my pre-order.

Haffrung Helleyes · Apr 1, 2008

If it's open for the purpose of adventures and campaign settings, I'll buy it.

If I can't get 3rd party adventures for it, I won't.

Ken

mxyzplk · Apr 1, 2008

If 4e isn't open enough that I can get adventures for it from Green Ronin, Atlas Games, Paizo, Goodman, etc., I'll stick with Pathfinder. WotC hasn't put out an adventure worth the name in... ever.

trancejeremy · Apr 1, 2008

If it were completely open, I would be buying it. That's what I liked most about 3.x/d20.

To me WOTC stuff was essentially like McDonalds' - bland, tasteless, pre-packaged, corporate cookie cutter stuff. And the early 3.0 splatbooks were as bad in quality as anything any 3rd party put out (not excepting Foundation or the worst of Mongoose)

Lanefan · Apr 1, 2008

I'm not sure how much 4e stuff I'll buy in the first place, but whether the licence is open or closed isn't really a factor in my decision.

That said, I sure don't want to see any kind of return to the days of TSR, where anything remotely resembling outside game development - whether for profit or not - ran into the legal smackdown hammer without ever knowing what hit it.

Lanefan

Doc_Klueless · Apr 1, 2008

Voted "even if closed." I've bought some 3rd party stuff in the past. It sat on my shelf. I very seldom even went beyond the 3 core books when running my games with the one exception being the Unearthed Arcana which I thought had some nifty optional rules.

I have no problems buying other RPGs that are decidedly closed (WW, GURPS, etc.). Haven't for 20+ years. Even when D&D was "closed."

Sooooo, opened, closed, whatever, just give me my D&D.