Orcus said:
When you really think about this poison pill, Wizards is asking us to do nothing more than they are doing themselves (yes, I know this isnt 100% true but it is a good model for thought)--dont support 3E anymore, with all the handwringing that comes with such a decison--and jump on 4E. Its faster, better, cooler, newer, and 200% improved! or whatever other market speak you use when you releaunch.
You are absolutely right, but I am still concerned with support for OGL games.
Let me open up an example here and I will use Adamant Entertainment. My apologies to Gareth-Michael in advance.
Skull & Bones was published and distributed by Green Ronin. I don't know the sales figures, but I am guessing the game was somewhat successful without being a blockbuster game.
Adamant Entertainment has provided support for Skull & Bones in the form of the Buccaneers & Bokor products. Sure, a new Buccaneers & Bokor hasn't been released lately, but one could at some point in the future. An old product (Skull & Bones) with potentially new support (Buccaneers & Bokor).
Northern Crown was published by Atlas Games. Again, I doubt this was a blockbuster game.
Adamant Entertainment has provided support for Northern Crown through the Franklyn's Almanack products.
Adamant Entertainment provides support for the D20 Modern ruleset through several product lines, but let's pick the Thrilling Tales products.
Right now, if Adamant Entertainment chooses to support GSL, all of those products may have to be discountinued.
Presumably WotC will eventually cover the bases of D20 Modern with some sort of flavor of 4.x. But Green Ronin and Atlast games might never choose to rewrite Skull & Bones or Northern Crown as GSL products.
But how does pulling Buccaneers and Bokor from availability benefit WotC? How does preventing Adamant Entertainment from releasing another Franklyn's Almanac benefit WotC? Are those market dollars so valuable that WotC needs to close off those avenues of support?
I do know that closing those avenues of support doesn't benefit me at all. Not as a customer. If I have a group of friends that gets together twice a year and we all happen to like to play Skull & Bones, we might like to keep those options open.
Instead, WotC is using market leverage to prevent more support for those niche products from being released. It is one thing if that support doesn't come to fruition because it doesn't make sense for Adamant Entertainment to devote energy to developing the support. It is an entirely different issue that if Mr. Skarka has an idea burning in his head one night for just one more issue of Buccaneers and Bokor, he can't publish it because he chose to support the GSL.
I can find more examples all over the place. I have two weekly groups that play D&D. But we don't always play D&D, sometimes we play something else as a change of pace. As well, that isn't the only gaming I do. I liked the OGL because it allowed the creation of new games with the same basic mechanics. It made the learning curve much shorter if I wanted to play a game that WotC didn't directly support. What's more, as an educated consumer, I understood that the OGL was irrevocable. And as a PDF consumer/advocate, I understood why OGL support could always exist. Once a product has been created in a PDF format, it doesn't take up warehouse space. It could sit in digital land forever. These products could trickle in sales year after year, which might be convenient since I might not get around to playing a new game immediately. In fact, it might be downright old by the time I get around to playing it again. But if it was an OGL product and there was PDF support for it, I might even be able to find material that was new to me when I did get around to playing it.
I just never anticipated that WotC would feel so threatened by those products that they would make new licenses contingent on the removal of that old product.
Sure, it makes sense that WotC would want GSL adopters to commit to the new system. But what I want as a customer is support for every system I own and want to play. I still have my 1st Ed and 2nd Ed D&D stuff. And because I left D&D in the 2nd Ed days (because I didn't like the way TSR was running their business), I don't have all the material that was published. But I can get that material in PDF format if I want it. But I won't be able to get support in PDF format for some of my OGL games if an excellent company wants to porduce GSL products. The poison pill certainly doesn't benefit me in this case.