Dice4Hire said:
Then perhaps write your own game or product and keep all the copyrighty goodness for yourself?
I'd go OGL (or at least Creative Commons), but that's neither here nor there. The point is that WotC doesn't need to claim ownership of everything I post in their little sub-forum just to protect themselves from getting sued some day, and that lazy, unenforcable, categorical claims of ownership are bad things. That's true regardless of what business yer in.
But anyway again, not really important to the 5e convo.
Alzurius said:
Based on the tone of their press release, I'm worried that WotC is going to go too far in trying to make a game that appeals to everyone.
I don't think this is a big fear. I think that rather than make "a game for everyone," they will make a loose base, and then several things that jack into that base. Those things that jack into that base will be self-contained, and narrowly defined.
Imagine 4e's policy for settings (1-3 books, then done, except for magazine content), but applied to
rules instead. Rather than make one Universal D&D, they'll make a loose base, and then plug in 1-3 books on minis-intensive combat, and 1-3 books on dungeon exploration, and 1-3 books on intrigue-heavy city gaming, and....etc.
So the "core D&D" will be less "a game for everyone," and more "a game for those who want to do their own thing with D&D." And then, on top of that core, they can release other games -- games for those who love minis combat, games for those who love adventure paths, games for those who want postapocalyptic wahoo 80's adventure (like Dark Sun), etc.
And if the core is sufficiently flexible -- broadly defined principles instead of hard and fast rules, forex -- then even those people who want to save vs. paralyzation rather than roll an attack against Fortitude can be happy, since D&D's brand identity won't rest on a particular ruleset.
If they're very clever, they'll make it OGL, since that'll let others fill in niches WotC might not have the budget to pay attention to. And then Pathfinder can even build on whatever base 5e makes, taking it in its own direction.