re: No 4E for Necromancer Games!

[Arnwyn]

You must have missed Clark/Orcus's many posts trying to calm people down who were annoyed with WotC's delays and talking about how excited he was about 4.0 and the products that they were planning to put out for it.

No, I did manage to catch some of his "many posts" about how excited he was about 4e.

Never did see one about him supporting the GSL...

 

[frankthedm]

Never did see one about him supporting the GSL...

Have even the forum dwelling wotc employees been that supportive of the GSL? The didn't badmouth it, but they also did not endorse it much more than an employee who wants to keep their job would IIRC.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I don't know if you'd consider us (Expeditious Retreat Press) a big publisher, but we're releasing a GSL 4e line called Lands of Darkness.

I think XRP puts out some great stuff. I like the fact that you're supporting other systems, in addition to the current edition. I especially like your 1e-compatible Advanced Adventures.

 

[catsclaw227]

I don't know if you'd consider us (Expeditious Retreat Press) a big publisher, but we're releasing a GSL 4e line called Lands of Darkness.

I have almost all your Monster Geographica books too. I'd love to see some of them go 4e.

 

[Voadam]

In this regard the OGL was a complete success. But consider other d20 products like Malhovic's Arcana Unearthed (and it's successor Arcana Evolved) or Green Ronin's Mutants and Masterminds (and it's True20 evolution). These are d20 products for sure but consider this:

I ran a Mutants and Masterminds game for 10 months. I had four player's buy the Mutants and Masterminds rulebook. I had two player's pick up Ultimate Power supplement. I myself purchased the rulebook, the pocket version of the rulebook, the gamemaster's screen, Ultimate Power, the M&M Gamemaster's guide, and several adventures.

No one bought a PHB, a DMG, or MM. No Races of... or Complete... were purchased. WoTC did not make a dime out of my game.

And yet I had character sheets that had Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha. I had feats, I had skill ranks, I have Fort, Ref, and Will. There were DC's and an 18 Strenght meant a +4. And, of course, we rolled a d20. Sure there were changes to the game (really GOOD changes btw), but this was clearly a game based off of dungeons and dragons d20 mechanic. And yet WoTC derived (and would derive) zero cash flow from it. I had several player's who never even played D&D (and still haven't).

Did M&M or AU ruin WoTC financially? Of course not. But I can't imagine the profit margins in the RPG world are so vast that you can afford to give ANYTHING away.

You played a supers game, introduced people who had never played D&D to RPGs in this supers game and WotC who does not make any supers RPG stuff whatsoever did not make any money off it.

WotC does not make any money off anybody playing supers games.

If you had not played M&M which is D&D like and keeps you conversant in several D&D mechanics you could have been playing another supers RPG such as HERO, Aberrant, Heroes Unlimited, Villains and Vigilantes, etc. which is completely unrelated to D&D and you would be farther away from D&D. I don't know the market numbers but I assume you could find another supers game as easily as you found M&M. Those new players would not have learned the basic mechanics of D&D and would be less primed for taking up D&D in the future.

For this to be a money loss for WotC the situation would have to be that if there was no M&M you would have instead played a straight D&D game and the money spent on M&M been spent on WotC books. Perhaps if you were so wedded to the d20 D&D rules base that you were unwilling to play a genre WotC did not support and would default to D&D instead of finding something else to do.

Seeing as how you evidently wanted to play a supers game and not a D&D game at the time and there are plenty of nond20 Supers games with established markets I think it more likely you would have found one of those and played a nond20 game.

So WotC in evaluating the costs of allowing M&M to exist in this case would look at the possibility that you were devoted to their rule system over the genre of the game and compare that with the value of having your group know and keep current with WotC's d20 mechanics and reducing the barrier for those new players to pick up D&D in the future as they are now conversant in many of the mechanics.

 

[Voadam]

I have almost all your Monster Geographica books too. I'd love to see some of them go 4e.

Can't really happen under the GSL.

Those are full of OGC monsters from other sources. XRP could only convert ones they created themselves, otherwise the OGL only authorizes reuse of OGC under the terms of the OGL. Under the GSL XRP can not publish OGC in a GSL product.

 

[catsclaw227]

Those are full of OGC monsters from other sources. XRP could only convert ones they created themselves, otherwise the OGL only authorizes reuse of OGC under the terms of the OGL. Under the GSL XRP can not publish OGC in a GSL product.

Yea, but I would still love to see some of them go 4e. And they could do a new set of monsters.

 

[Voadam]

Yea, but I would still love to see some of them go 4e. And they could do a new set of monsters.

Sure, they could do 4e conversions of them, it would just have to be under the OGL, not the GSL.

 

[jgbrowning]

I think XRP puts out some great stuff. I like the fact that you're supporting other systems, in addition to the current edition. I especially like your 1e-compatible Advanced Adventures.

Thanks! We like making them.

Yea, but I would still love to see some of them go 4e. And they could do a new set of monsters.

I'd like to have done something like the Monster Geographica series with 4e but the GSL's not designed for such a product.

joe b.

 

[catsclaw227]

I'd like to have done something like the Monster Geographica series with 4e but the GSL's not designed for such a product.

Really? I might be misunderstanding you Joe, but are you saying that the GSL is not designed for a 3pp 4e monster book, or are you saying that it is not designed for a book with other OGL monsters?

I've seen your work, I think you can create some original monsters and put out a monster book, but I am not sure what you mean.