D&D 5E Is D&D Next Open?

[Hussar]

The thing that people seem to forget is that the release of 5e is a completely and totally different situation from the release of 3e.

Let's hit the wayback machine shall we? 3e was released by a virtually unknown RPG publishing company who was far better known for its CCG's. D&D, as a business, was in the toilet. TSR had gone bankrupt. The rules for AD&D were twenty years old and most serious gamers at the time were moving on to other games. The hobby was shrinking.

3e at release had to compete, not only with earlier versions of D&D, for which there was a metric crapton of material, but a number of other very healthy RPG's with complete product lines. The OGL was a way to get the name D&D back on the shelves in a huge way without costing WOTC a bunch of money.

Fast forward to today. Anyone remotely interested in RPG's can find out more information, instantly, than they could ever possibly want to know. Tens of thousands of people belong to various websites. A game that isn't even out yet is being talked about more than completely mature product lines like Pathfinder or 4e D&D. Think about that for a second. A game that won't be out for months yet, that we haven't actually seen the finished version of, is being talked about in more places than any other RPG out there.

They don't need an OGL to get the game in the hands of players. And considering how much licensing has bitten them on the ass in the past, do you really think you're going to see a 3e style OGL ever again?

 

[Jan van Leyden]

It may be murky, but the line is there. For instance DCC uses the OGL but much of the content (most) in the main book is not open content, asfaik. The city rules in the ultimate campaign guide I think are well past that mark. Not only did they put those rules into the open they even sold third party products from their store front that used them, and modified them for their own products. I don't think the OGL demands that kind of commitment.

To quote from the license printed in the DCC book:

Dungeon Crawl Classics, DCC RPG, Mighty Deed of Arms, spell check, Luck check, spellburn, mercurial magic, corruption, disapproval, all spell names, all proper nouns, capitalized terms, italicized terms, artwork, maps, symbols, depictions, and illustrations, except such elements that already appear in the System Reference Document.

On top of that Goodman Games also offers "a free license to third party publishers who wish to publish compatible material." The situation seems to be a bit murkier here than wiht the original WotC OGL for 3(.5)e.

Another guess I'd hazard: as a smaller outfit in comparison to WotC with much less corporate guidelines Goodman Games can probably handle more exceptions and individual cases.

 

[Halivar]

I don't see WotC handing 3PP a free fork of the game ever again.

Ever.

Again.

OGL is dead as a doornail for WotC. The ability for 3PP to make compatible material, in the end, hurt WotC's bottom line. You may see a less-permissive license from them but you will not see OGL.

 

[DaveMage]

OGL is dead as a doornail for WotC. The ability for 3PP to make compatible material, in the end, hurt WotC's bottom line. You may see a less-permissive license from them but you will not see OGL.

Do you think the OGL is hurting Paizo's bottom line?


Also, 4E wasn't open. How'd that work out?

 

[Jester David]

4e's GSL us embłematic of the changes between 3e and 4e. There was a problem, the rule did not work as intended and allowed some side effects. But instead of just tweaking and tightening the rule they redesigned everything, and shifted to the opposite end of the spectrum.

The OGL is too open. Competitors shouldn't be able to make their own PHB. It shouldn't be possible to do what Paizo did.
But the GSL is too closed, to the point of being more of a hinderance than a benefit.

Open Gaming works and continues to be a good thing for several reasons. It allows companies other than WotC to create content for other styles of campaign, create alternate campaign setting' and published adventures WotC does not want to. So people can buy those products and use them with their D&D products from WotC. It feeds sales of the core rulebooks.
This also allows WotC to do what they want, like focus on the a Realms, knowing 3rd Parties will be able cater to the rest of the audience.

A policy for open gaming also helps the fans. At a time where anyone with a Google account can set up a free blog or website, hosting and sharing your fan content is pretty darn easy. It would be nice to know the WotC lawyers aren't going to start throwing around C+Ds.

 

[Halivar]

Do you think the OGL is hurting Paizo's bottom line?

Of course not. But the rich benefits of the OGL Paizo is reaping come at WotC's expense. Right now I bet WotC wishes they'd never even made the OGL. From a business standpoint, it was a mistake. The benefits or the OGL to WotC during the 3.x era are dubious. Not sure many people looked at Mongoose's The Quintessential Elf and said, "Ok, THAT has sold me on D&D."

Also, 4E wasn't open. How'd that work out?

Do you think it would have fared better with the OGL? I'm not sold on that idea. But we can say definitively that 3.x being OGL hurt 4E. Thus I say that WotC will never return to the OGL again.

 

[darjr]

Of course not. But the rich benefits of the OGL Paizo is reaping come at WotC's expense. Right now I bet WotC wishes they'd never even made the OGL. From a business standpoint, it was a mistake. The benefits or the OGL to WotC during the 3.x era are dubious. Not sure many people looked at Mongoose's The Quintessential Elf and said, "Ok, THAT has sold me on D&D."


Do you think it would have fared better with the OGL? I'm not sold on that idea. But we can say definitively that 3.x being OGL hurt 4E. Thus I say that WotC will never return to the OGL again.

Isn't Mearls a part of WotC? It sure sounded like he wanted OGL 5e, at least for a while. It's second hand, sure, but from sources that, I think, are trustworthy.

 

[delericho]

He was referring to an actual event. It was an issue. That very thing was done (a miniature SRD PHB someone published). I forget the name of the company,

It was Mongoose Publishing.

but rumor was that product REALLY pissed of people at WOTC.

It might well have done. However, it's also worth noting that Ryan Dancey was asked about this possibility before the OGL even debuted, and he said that people were welcome to try. They did, and the result was unspectacular - AFAIK, Mongoose never bothered with a second printing of their low-cost pocket PHB, where WotC did several, much larger printings.

WotC may have been pissed off at what happened, but that book hurt them not a jot.

(Pathfinder, of course, is another matter.)

 

[gweinel]

I find funny all this conversation if OGL hurt Wizards or not. If hurt Paizo or not. If 4e was too strict or not. I find all this talk funny because we talk about the companies and how these actually make big, little or no profit. We are even taking sides about their profits. I can understand this to a degree. The RPGs companies produce the game we love. I can understand it but i don't agree with all the focus we give to the companies.

Almost noone is asking if open or close gaming policies helped the subjects: the gamers, all the ppl that post here and many thousands more.

What would we do if 3e wasn't so free to use? What would the gamers do if wizards choose to produce 4e without any Pathfinder, or any dnd branch game?

I am not a diviner ( ) but I can predict that the OGL really boosted the number of choices that we have in our gamng nights. We are "richer" because 3e was free for all to use. Although I don't play Pathfinder i think that it kept many ppl to dnd at the same time were 4e players were reduced. I think that if there was no Pathfinder many disatisfied players from 4e would turn to other games. I consider OGL allowed to Wizards to make (imho) a financial mistake and still have the hegamony of the industry. Many of us still playing dnd because of this. I know quantity of gaming material doesn't mean quality, but I prefer to have the freedom of choice.

In summary i think the players were in fact benefited from OGL and if 5e follow the same tracks we would will see another gamers bloom like we did 14 years before.

 

[DaveMage]

Do you think it would have fared better with the OGL? I'm not sold on that idea.

I do!

The problem is, the genie's out of the bottle. Third parties can essentially create D&D (or D&D derivative) products at will. So WotC can either embrace that or resist it. Having more companies promote your brand would seem to be better than having those companies promote a different brand.

A major point of the OGL/d20 license was to sell more player's handbooks. For a time from 2000-2003, almost *all* 3rd party FRPG publishers had the following tagline (or similar) on a number of their products: "Requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook published by Wizards of the Coast". That's some serious brand promotion. WotC failed to continue to leverage it and embrace it, and instead chose to fight it.