Necromancer Games NOT going with current GSL.

[JVisgaitis]

Why? Why does 2E get no love?

The most fun I had playing D&D was 2e using Skills & Powers and Combat & Tactics. A lot of people hated those books, but we had a blast. I just left out 2e because not a lot of people talk about it. I'm not slighting that edition in the slightest as my fondest memories are from the 2e days.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Edit: Oh my... and Ari's Advanced Players Guide. I'm so sorry to hear another of your projects is in limbo.

July has really not been good to me this year.

 

[jmucchiello]

What I find hard to reconcile is that Necro publishes updates to old JG products: products that had no license yet were clearly compatible with the D&D of their time. Yet Clark won't go that route to support the current version of D&D as he would prefer. Why was okay in the 70s but not okay today?

 

[Wyrmshadows]

The most fun I had playing D&D was 2e using Skills & Powers and Combat & Tactics. A lot of people hated those books, but we had a blast. I just left out 2e because not a lot of people talk about it. I'm not slighting that edition in the slightest as my fondest memories are from the 2e days.

Me too.

I loved 2e with some Player's Option material added in. I DMed for years using those mechanics and they were utterly unbalanced according to today's balance obsessed mindset but I never once had a problem because as DM I was in charge of the options I allowed and I had players who didn't try to game the system.

IMO 3.5e's greatest weakness is that it actually rewarded players who gamed the system (oh yeah in D&D parlance that is "character optimizers") if the DM was weak and allowed endless freedom in choosing PrCs and included a pile of WoTC and 3pp splat books. The nonsensical inclusion of all options was actually supported with the idea that to deny players access to every available race, core class, PrC, feat, etc. was to deny them the full D&D experience.

Curious how this thinking came from the company who created an endless stream of PrCs and splatbooks...can anyone say "cha ching?"



Wyrmshadows

 

[smootrk]

Why was okay in the 70s but not okay today?

A lot more lawyers around running the show these days.

 

[cildarith]

What I find hard to reconcile is that Necro publishes updates to old JG products: products that had no license yet were clearly compatible with the D&D of their time. Yet Clark won't go that route to support the current version of D&D as he would prefer. Why was okay in the 70s but not okay today?

I'm pretty sure JG had a license (or some type of agreement with TSR) until the early '80s. Once they lost that they released material under their 'Universal System' and could no longer print "Approved for Use with Dungeons & Dragons" on their products.

 

[JeffB]

Man, this sucks. I really hope Clark and the Necro guys can get the GSL issues worked out and be able to print 4e materials. I love Necro's previous stuff, but I have absoultely NO interest in Pathfinder-

..and 3.X.

That part of your post sums up how I feel. The only saving grace for me would be Clark deciding to support C&C, otherwise, I won't be making any purchases either. I had pretty much everythng they made up until 3.5 products started rolling out. They'd always been my #1 choice for modules when I was playing 3.x.

Thankfully for me, Goodman is stepping up to the plate, but Necro will be sorely missed (I've no faith in WOTC doing anything to resove Clark's issues, frankly)

 

[thatdarnedbob]

Sigh. One more reason I'm a fan of WotC's design team, and not so much of their legal team. It's a shame.

 

[Grimstaff]

Interesting thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago at "the" FLGS of NYC.
I was talking to the owner and he said beyond the initial sales due to it being new it wasnt selling all that well. He also asked me if I had checked out Pathfinder yet. It seems Pathfinder is selling well.

Hmm, I wonder why 4E isn't selling so well at his store?

Customer: "Pardon me, I've heard there's a new edition of D&D..."

Owner: "Have you checked out Pathfinder yet?"

Baffling...

 

[Scribble]

I don't think WotC's bottom line was hurting because of the 3PP products. There was a clear preference for "official" D&D content in the market. I do agree that most of the meaningful innovation came from the 3PPs.

I don't. A lot of cool stuff came from 3pps, but I don't agree "most of the innovation" did.

I think that the GSL is a reaction to the overall shrinking of the RPG market in general. Not having access to WotC's numbers, I can only guess that they saw 3rd edition sales drop down to numbers not seen since TSR was going out of business and they decided that they wanted all of the business this time around. Even if 3PPs have (at most) 10% of the market, that's a 10% boost in sales that they can show to Hasbro, thereby keeping the brand alive and jobs intact.

Eh... I don't have the numbers either, but I think they just decided they want people to use D&D to support D&D. (Directly)

I don't think theres anything personal in the GSL or any kind of "hidden" motives. It is what it is.

To me it says: This is how you can use what we consider our IP to make money, without giving us any of that money. If you don't care for the terms, cool. No sweat off our backs.

The problem, as was pointed out above, is that many gamers can see blatant corporate greed for what it is and are willing to rebel against it. If Necromancer adopts the GSL, they will effectively stop being a publisher the minute WotC decides to yank the license. They might be generous and keep it in place until 5th edition, or they could pull it in the middle of the edition, but either way, it's bad news for anyone else who wants to make D&D compatible stuff.

I think this is over-reactibng a bit. PAIZO didn't stop when they pulled the Dragon/Dungeon licenses... Just my opinion though.

What's more is that with the OGL, they managed to convince the gaming public that having a standardized set of rules for all genres and settings is a good thing. People bought in and competing systems lost popularity. The bottom line is that if the publishers and the customers drop support for open gaming now, OGL games will disappear from the market and successful non-WotC gaming products will be mostly a thing of the past - at least until someone either comes up with a new system that is vastly superior, versatile, and somehow manages to capture a good chunk of the market, or Hasbro pulls the plug on D&D and the third party publishers become the primary source for gaming. I don't like that scenario.

Yeah, the d20 and d20 based game craze lasted a while. it was a new idea. But I think you're really really really discrediting other non d20 games... Like WoD stuff or GURPS.

If you're a 4th edition fan, enjoy the game and play the game. What I urge you to do though, is to stop judging those who choose not to adopt it and join in a game or two of either 3.5 or Pathfinder when convenient. In other words, assume that the worst case scenario is possible and hedge your bets a bit.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't judge people who don't choose to play 4e. Play what you want, and what makes you happy. I'm a fan of the system sure, so I'll speak highly of it, and debate about its merits with anyone who wants to, but judge someone based on what games they play? Haven't done that since I was in junior highschool...

But hedge my bet? Huh? Gaming isn't a stock option for me... It's a thing I do amuse myself in my freetime. And I barely have enough to play just the one game system lately.