Why doesn't WotC open up the Rules Compendium?

[Ferdil]

You know, I was thinking about this lately, and it makes good sense to me.

Why doesn't Wizards open up the Rules Compendium as sort of an SRD under OGL-like terms? No classes nor feats, just the rules.

As I see it, although i'm no expert and just speculating, this could be really beneficial to them as a company.

1. This would not hurt the sales of the books very much, because it's meant as a rule reference during play, and the small book is really useful when used.
2. It would open up to 3rd party publishers, eventually strengthening the D&D brand. See the Open Letter to WotC by Dias ex Machina on this point.
3. They could be a little more strict than the OGL by saying you *can't* create a new system using RC rules, so they would avoid the rage of alternative d20 systems that appeared in the late lifecycle of 3e+OGL.
4. It would improve the image of their company very much, expecially for open-gaming advocates, which now delve among the Pathfinder crowd. Maybe someone would even convert.
5. They could still keep the focus on their own product by featuring only WotC products in the CB and MB.
6. Eventually this would promote the RC as the main core product for 4e, strengthening its sales very much (every group playing some variant of 4e would need it as a useful reference during play). It could also strengthen the sales of the other D&D products.

Tell me what you think.

 

[wayne62682]

It could work, but IMO they still won't do it because of how badly they were burned under the OGL (in their view of course).

IMO the big problem with the OGL in general was that they restricted it too much; 90% of what they came out with was "non-OGL content" so nobody but them could use it, so third parties either HAD to make their own systems or they quite literally had nothing worth using.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You know, I was thinking about this lately, and it makes good sense to me.

Why doesn't Wizards open up the Rules Compendium as sort of an SRD under OGL-like terms? No classes nor feats, just the rules.

As I see it, although i'm no expert and just speculating, this could be really beneficial to them as a company.

1. This would not hurt the sales of the books very much, because it's meant as a rule reference during play, and the small book is really useful when used.
2. It would open up to 3rd party publishers, eventually strengthening the D&D brand. See the Open Letter to WotC by Dias ex Machina on this point.
3. They could be a little more strict than the OGL by saying you *can't* create a new system using RC rules, so they would avoid the rage of alternative d20 systems that appeared in the late lifecycle of 3e+OGL.
4. It would improve the image of their company very much, expecially for open-gaming advocates, which now delve among the Pathfinder crowd. Maybe someone would even convert.
5. They could still keep the focus on their own product by featuring only WotC products in the CB and MB.
6. Eventually this would promote the RC as the main core product for 4e, strengthening its sales very much (every group playing some variant of 4e would need it as a useful reference during play). It could also strengthen the sales of the other D&D products.

Tell me what you think.

1) We don't know how much it would hurt them. They know how much or little OGL content in 3.x hurt them, so they're the ones with the information to make a decision. I would however point out that PF is certainly OGL collateral damage caused to WotC. Losing control of a rather valuable product (effectively) is not good business.

2) Not everyone is THAT enamored with 3PPs. Beyond that 3PPs can already produce settings and adventures and accessories of all kinds under the GSL without a problem. I've played D&D for 35 years and probably 97% of my purchases have been from TSR/WotC for rules stuff.

3) Well, what is a 'new system'? That's really semantics. Under GSL I can create all kinds of new mechanics as long as I don't redefine existing ones. DEM has a whole setting that is virtually a stand-alone game aside from the obligatory references to PHB content for core rules. Seems like under GSL they basically have what your talking about.

4) I play a fair amount of RPGs and know a fair number of players of all stripes from hardcore to totally casual. 99% of them don't know what GSL or OGL are and don't care. It may or may not be important for 'developer mind share', but to the bulk of the community at large this whole issue that is argued so vociferously by the 1% of gamers that are on these forums is irrelevant. They just want to sit down, have some chips and slay monsters.

5) They are never going to open up CB and MB for reasons that are largely technical and financial. Certainly not in any future that is likely within the lifecycle of 4e. So this is basically irrelevant.

6) Why? It is fine to put these hypotheticals out there, but lets think about this. RC is a $15 book. What's the best they can achieve with that, a $15 book in every gamer's hands. That's nice, but I think they aim for a bit more than that... They want to be able to sell you 10 books. I mean think about, PHB1 is in the hands of practically all 4e players already. On top of that many have other books. Why cede that space to 3rd parties?

Honestly, it isn't like I'm at all hostile to the basic "open source commons" kind of concept where everyone is better off if they all share. The question is can that exist in the RPG industry? Is it really better for the industry if everyone is a big happy family and will they all sell more stuff? I'm not really convinced it is.

In the IT field there is a vast amount of 'stuff' that people need to do that is the same over and over and over again. Nobody is interested in novelty at the level of the inner guts of software and IT systems. Also each system has increased value when they can interoperate with more other systems. This all encourages sharing. Most of what differentiates one product from another is at the surface layer or is one specific module of technology that has to still fit in with a lot of other vanilla stuff. A commons approach makes a huge amount of sense in this environment.

In the RPG game publishing industry the situation is totally different. Customers are looking for novel gaming experiences, or they're looking to continue their existing gaming experiences. If the former then building new stuff on top of existing stuff is mostly just reducing novelty. In the later case why would you want to have your product be open? If you can be the sole supplier of a particular gaming experience that people want to have, that's the way to make money.

Games really are not that super hard to develop or write. Not compared to software. Systems can be created in short order, tested, reworked, etc. You can easily steal ideas from other people etc. All of it is going to be boiled down into your particular unique game before it goes out there anyway. Sure, having a d20 system is somewhat handy, but the truth is most games are better off with more genre-specific core systems anyway.

Look at the slew of games that were ported to d20. Very few of them had really successful d20 variants. Most were worse games for being ported. The majority of them have either written new core systems or gone back to their original core rules since. The games that people really talk about now? Very few of them are d20 based.

The truth is there just isn't that much reason for a talented game design team to base an RPG on d20 unless that type of system is exactly what the game really needs. There's not that much advantage to having systems able to cross material either. You just rarely see someone saying "wow, being able to drop a starship into my wire-fu themed campaign is great!" It could be handy now and then, but the vast majority of the time players are fine with sticking to a genre and reuse of out-of-genre material isn't that strong a draw. For that subset of gamers who DO feel it is a big advantage, there's always GURPS...

I guess I'm just not overall terribly convinced that OGL was a great idea and that 4e needs to be covered by it. Ironically one of the main strengths 4e has over PF is that Paizo is involuntarily wedded to OGL forever no matter what. WotC could drop their stuff into any license they want tomorrow. I don't think they're going to give up that advantage anytime soon, even if it could generate a little extra profit.

 

[Starman]

Look at the slew of games that were ported to d20. Very few of them had really successful d20 variants. Most were worse games for being ported. The majority of them have either written new core systems or gone back to their original core rules since. The games that people really talk about now? Very few of them are d20 based.

I think one could easily argue that the problem was more that these conversions were rushed and not really thought through rather than d20 was a poor fit. Look at some of the more highly acclaimed d20 games like Mutants & Masterminds or Spycraft. They fall under the d20 umbrella and can be recognized as such, but have clearly really stretched themselves to accomplish the goals of the underlying game.

I'm not saying every game should be d20. I happen to enjoy a number of different games that are completely unrelated. I just don't think it's fair to point to games that were clearly rushed to cash in on the d20 craze in order to make the argument that d20 can't work for other games.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think one could easily argue that the problem was more that these conversions were rushed and not really thought through rather than d20 was a poor fit. Look at some of the more highly acclaimed d20 games like Mutants & Masterminds or Spycraft. They fall under the d20 umbrella and can be recognized as such, but have clearly really stretched themselves to accomplish the goals of the underlying game.

I'm not saying every game should be d20. I happen to enjoy a number of different games that are completely unrelated. I just don't think it's fair to point to games that were clearly rushed to cash in on the d20 craze in order to make the argument that d20 can't work for other games.

Well, we don't know what games were 'rushed' and which ones weren't rushed. Honestly I have no way of knowing what the motivation was for creating things like d20 CoC or d20 Traveler for instance. All I know is they were not particularly successful and there are a long list of other games likewise that failed to convert to d20 with much success (or at least quickly reverted or disappeared).

The thing is what did M&M really gain from being a d20 based game? Was their really some substantial advantage there? I mean they had to make pretty extensive changes to d20. It isn't as if the game is THAT close a cousin to say 3.5 D&D etc. Obviously the people who brought it out considered d20 to be a good idea. OTOH I wonder if they would do it the same way now if they could go back? It isn't that I think common generic systems are BAD, it is just that I don't think they have a whole lot of value.

Most of what makes a particular game cool and successful has to do with how it evokes the setting and genre the game is aimed at, and maybe how well it reproduces existing material (like say SWSE). All of these things are easier if you have total control of the whole system and build it to do the thing you want to do from the ground up. Honestly, having playtested commercial RPGs, having done a LOT of homebrew stuff, and even having written a couple of systems for my own amusement and home use I can say that the basic construction of the nuts-and-bolts of an RPG are fairly trivial. The hard parts have to do with matching those mechanics to how the game wants to play so they evoke the right feel. Having a generic system as a starting point is at best a very small advantage and often can restrict your thinking unnecessarily. There's just not THAT much value to d20.

The OGL was nice for 3PPs as it gave them access to the D&D add-on supplement market. The GSL pretty much does the same thing. In fact the GSL would probably be working fine and isn't an impediment to 3PPs. Access to DDI (CB mostly) is the big issue. Everyone uses CB nowadays. If your stuff isn't in there it doesn't exist. Since WotC will never ever put 3rd party content in CB there's never going to be a viable market for 3PP player-side crunch. 3PPs need to understand this. Even if WotC switched to OGL right now they STILL wouldn't be able to sell it, and the barriers to being in the CB are technical, financial, and operational. It just isn't going to happen. I don't think arguments about if it would be good or bad for WotC if it did happen even matter. It would be great if I could breath water too, but so what?