I've played the game ever since 1e and been happy about all new editions up to and including 3.5e. Therefore, I was also very excited about the release of 4e. But after playing thirty sessions and buying five books, my gaming group gave up and switched to Pathfinder. That move felt like coming home.
I'll not go into the reasons why 4e didn't work for us, because gamers will never be able to agree on this. What we probably can agree on, though, is that abandoning the OGL and enforcing a quite effective gamer repellant license, was a mistake.
The Wizards have now realized this, and are banging the gong-gong of Unity and Homecoming for all gamers to hear. The only trouble is this: Unity is important if you want to peddle as much RPG-material as possible, but unity matters very little to gamers. What matters a lot to gamers though, is COMMunity.
How can Wizards create that community?
They don't need to because it's still there. It's called d20 and OGL, and the Wizards were key players in creating that community.
But then the Wizards got greedy and envisioned a larger cut for themselves, so they created a new system with a closed license. Never mind that the game sucked. Mayhaps it could have been fixed, had they let the hive mind have a go at it. But no, they knew best and bid the community consume their stuff and shut up. The community of course, being denied the freedom to contribute and (re)distribute, moved along to help create the thriving Pathfinder ecology.
And now the Wizards want the community to come back home, unite and even help them create 5e. Which would be an extremely good deal for the Wizards. But will this happen? Only if the Wizards can offer the community a deal of equal or higher value to the existing one. Why help create a game system, if you're not free to play, expand upon, add value to, mutate, share and distribute it as you like?
So what, exactly, is the deal this time around, Wizards? Because of your recent crummy track record I want to know up front, before I start helping you out. Show me your License, please!
I'll not go into the reasons why 4e didn't work for us, because gamers will never be able to agree on this. What we probably can agree on, though, is that abandoning the OGL and enforcing a quite effective gamer repellant license, was a mistake.
The Wizards have now realized this, and are banging the gong-gong of Unity and Homecoming for all gamers to hear. The only trouble is this: Unity is important if you want to peddle as much RPG-material as possible, but unity matters very little to gamers. What matters a lot to gamers though, is COMMunity.
How can Wizards create that community?
They don't need to because it's still there. It's called d20 and OGL, and the Wizards were key players in creating that community.
But then the Wizards got greedy and envisioned a larger cut for themselves, so they created a new system with a closed license. Never mind that the game sucked. Mayhaps it could have been fixed, had they let the hive mind have a go at it. But no, they knew best and bid the community consume their stuff and shut up. The community of course, being denied the freedom to contribute and (re)distribute, moved along to help create the thriving Pathfinder ecology.
And now the Wizards want the community to come back home, unite and even help them create 5e. Which would be an extremely good deal for the Wizards. But will this happen? Only if the Wizards can offer the community a deal of equal or higher value to the existing one. Why help create a game system, if you're not free to play, expand upon, add value to, mutate, share and distribute it as you like?
So what, exactly, is the deal this time around, Wizards? Because of your recent crummy track record I want to know up front, before I start helping you out. Show me your License, please!
