Scott Thorne, a retailer, comments on recent events

[Zil]

I understand your point. But I think there is one aspect that you might be overlooking. Now this is with hindsight, but lets just say Paizo would have gone with 4E at first. And then, when the deition war storm broke loose, they would have realized that there are a lot of people who just do not like 4E because of the design, which these people think sucks big time.
This is a target group that WotC did not reach anymore and taht would have been looking for somebody to pick up the 3rd edition stick and march on with it. And I am 100% sure that Paizo would have done that. It is just too big of an opportunity, too many business chances there.

If Paizo they had become heavily invested in 4E via a 4E OGL, then they would be less likely to suddenly change tack. If the the OGL 4E market share was declining sharply and people were clamouring for 3E support, then sure, they might start to slowly change course doing a few OGL things at first and then more if those were successful.

However, if a lot of people strongly dislike 4E mainly because of the design, then they aren't going to keep playing it, period. It doesn't matter if the OGL is around or not. Why play a game you don't enjoy? If the game isn't enjoyable to your customers, then you have much bigger problems than a game industry rival that you helped to create.

What a 4E OGL would have done is give 4E players more options beyond those WotC comes up with : new settings, adventures, alternate classes, powers with a niche theme, etc. This might have helped keep players who were bored with what Wizard's putting out and perhaps drawn new players in because it's a bigger ecosystem appealing to a wider range of gamer tastes.

As I posted above, in my opinion this could have been avoided with some sort of other legal agreement. Something that gives the right to use the rules to a company but retains the rights to stop that usage with WotC. Combine this with a lower fee than the 5000$ (was that the OGL fee, I do not remember) and I gues WotC would have been good to go.
I would say, same effect as the OGL, no loss of IP.

I believe the $5000 number you are referring to is tied to 4E. There is no fee to use the OGL. If they had used a more restrictive expiring license, you would not have had that vibrant d20/OGL ecosystem and D&D would have been the poorer for it.

I do not think they were doing well, because they build up competing products within the company that people could buy. But the fact that they were able to create all these worlds shows that you had a lot of design potential which could have been used to satisfy by far the most DnD players.

Yes, even though it may have contributed to TSR's demise, I loved all those 2E settings. To me, that was the D&D Golden Age.

 

[billd91]

I believe the $5000 number you are referring to is tied to 4E. There is no fee to use the OGL. If they had used a more restrictive expiring license, you would not have had that vibrant d20/OGL ecosystem and D&D would have been the poorer for it.

Yep, the OGL is free. No fees at all.
The $5000 number was for 3rd party publishers to get into the GSL early, before its general release. I assume it was to enable the publishers willing to pony up the cash to have something at 4e's launch to sell. Needless to say, that didn't work out.

 

[Henry]

What a 4E OGL would have done is give 4E players more options beyond those WotC comes up with : new settings, adventures, alternate classes, powers with a niche theme, etc. This might have helped keep players who were bored with what Wizard's putting out and perhaps drawn new players in because it's a bigger ecosystem appealing to a wider range of gamer tastes.

Even moreso, it would have meant different systems altogether, hybrids of 4E and 3E that incorporated the coolest aspects of both, so that the spectrum was across the board for people who wanted a specific flavor of "D&D". Heck, Essentials might have come out a year earlier, with another company creating it, basically, a 3.95, if you will - likely, someone like Paizo.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Even moreso, it would have meant different systems altogether, hybrids of 4E and 3E that incorporated the coolest aspects of both, so that the spectrum was across the board for people who wanted a specific flavor of "D&D". Heck, Essentials might have come out a year earlier, with another company creating it, basically, a 3.95, if you will - likely, someone like Paizo.

And that, I think , is the reason why Wizards did not go OGL for 4e.
The core 4e engine is very friendly for all sorts of alternative approaches.
It supports the Ravenloft game and Gamma World and you could easily do a rules light retro-clone by abandoning the powers, just keep the skills, the basic attacks and rituals. Then add in a new monster design paridigm for fast combat and combat spells for the MU/Cleric.
I also think that a lot of the water treading we are witnessing now is a consequence of the initial failure of Gleemax 3 years ago not on 4e per se.
I think that Gleemax was a result of a desire by Wizards to shift their role in the TTRPG ecosystem. The technoligical failure did not change the strategic aim but has affected the timeline and the resources available.

 

[Wicht]

Yep, the OGL is free. No fees at all.
The $5000 number was for 3rd party publishers to get into the GSL early, before its general release. I assume it was to enable the publishers willing to pony up the cash to have something at 4e's launch to sell. Needless to say, that didn't work out.

As I remember, they never actually got around to charging the fee. It was just one of those many things they threw out there about the GSL that never actually happened. Even though there were some 3pps ready to pay the fee (including Paizo) in order to get the look at the rules. But I don't believe that any 3pp ever got that early look at the 4e rules.

 

[billd91]

As I remember, they never actually got around to charging the fee. It was just one of those many things they threw out there about the GSL that never actually happened. Even though there were some 3pps ready to pay the fee (including Paizo) in order to get the look at the rules. But I don't believe that any 3pp ever got that early look at the 4e rules.

Right, because they totally fumbled the licensing. GSL never made its deadlines.

 

[BryonD]

And that, I think , is the reason why Wizards did not go OGL for 4e.

You might be right. But if you are, Wizards made a short sighted mistake.

Who knows, maybe if someone had re-tooled a 4E mod that fit my tastes, I'd be buying WotC stuff today to play through that. I admit, that is a big stretch in my case. But I'm certain that they could have seen the same synergy they saw with 3E.

 

[BryonD]

However, if a lot of people strongly dislike 4E mainly because of the design, then they aren't going to keep playing it, period. It doesn't matter if the OGL is around or not. Why play a game you don't enjoy? If the game isn't enjoyable to your customers, then you have much bigger problems than a game industry rival that you helped to create.

Exactly right.

This is the elephant in the corner.


Wulf Ratbane's Trailblazer is clearly named as a reference to Pathfinder. But I was involved in some of the development of that long before we heard of Pathfinder, we were just calling it 3.75, for lack of a better name.

I may not have known I was going to end up playing Pathfinder, but I'd known for a while that 4E was off the table. (no pun intended)

A lot of people don't find 4E enjoyable. Everything else is noise.
Yes, there are people who love it and hate 3E/Pathfinder. No argument.
But the overall balance of popularity is not close to the same.
In the end, it is as simple as that.

 

[TheFindus]

Exactly right.

This is the elephant in the corner.

If only the world was black and white like that.

But, as we all know, there are many more very relevant reasons why people play DnD.

One, there are people who spent a lot of money on 3.x and are unwilling to pay more on 4E, because they know they have the full system support (adventures and supplements) from Paizo.
So, no OGL, no system support. no Paizo-DnD.

Second, there are people who like to play DnD for the kind of fantasy it provides. You know, mind flayers and beholders and drow instead of skaven and warpstone and chaos warriors. Paizo creates products with this kind of fantasy because of the OGL. No OGL, no Paizo DnD, only WotC-DnD.

Third, there are people who like to play with the people they know regardless of the system. Provided there is enough stuff to play. Sure, there was a lot of stuff under 3.x. But eventually, old stuff gets, well, old. But if Paizo can continue to produce DnD-stuff.... you know what I am trying to say.

Fourth, and that is very specific for the german market, a lot of people want german rules. There were a lot of german WotC books under 3.x. Paizo can build around that, produce adventures, translate them into german, and voila! All because of the OGL and what WotC did with 3.x. No OGL, no Paizo-DnD, etc., etc.

But I see that we disagree on all that. You think the OGL was a splendid idea for WotC. Without the OGL, 3rd edition would not have been as successful. WotC should have done the same with 4E and there would have been less problems.

I am saying that WotC should not have done the OGL. They should have allowed other companies to use the rules under an easy access liscense for a cost. That would have been revolutionary for the biggest RPG company back then and people would have liked that, too. People played 3rd edition because they were ready for the new, more streamlined version and would have played it anyways. Giving away the IP was a major mistake, a bad management decision. I think that Mr. Dancey was incorrect back then and his decision is one of the reasons why he can now claim that "DnD is in a death spiral".
Without the OGL, WotC would not have to face the competition it is facing now with Paizo.
WotC would still have sucked at publishing 4E stuff as it does today. But 4E is not bad and, most importantly, there would not have been another heavily supported version of DnD out there. Which makes a huge difference.

We disagree here. And that is ok.

 

[shadzar]

But I see that we disagree on all that. You think the OGL was a splendid idea for WotC. Without the OGL, 3rd edition would not have been as successful. WotC should have done the same with 4E and there would have been less problems.

I am saying that WotC should not have done the OGL. They should have allowed other companies to use the rules under an easy access liscense for a cost. That would have been revolutionary for the biggest RPG company back then and people would have liked that, too. People played 3rd edition because they were ready for the new, more streamlined version and would have played it anyways. Giving away the IP was a major mistake, a bad management decision. I think that Mr. Dancey was incorrect back then and his decision is one of the reasons why he can now claim that "DnD is in a death spiral".
Without the OGL, WotC would not have to face the competition it is facing now with Paizo.
WotC would still have sucked at publishing 4E stuff as it does today. But 4E is not bad and, most importantly, there would not have been another heavily supported version of DnD out there. Which makes a huge difference.

We disagree here. And that is ok.

If that is what he is saying, then I would agree with him, not you personally.

Taking the OGL as a good thing it should have pushed improvement in design as such all other industries have when a competitor comes along. It seems the OGL probably backfired a bit, and one reason was because the quality of product found for the system was better at other places than from the originator WotC.

That is good for WotC considering the root system was popular enough for so many to take it on and increase the size of the people using the system and playing RPGs so that more would be likely to buy WotC products.

Again the problem was the quality of WotC products was not as high for many as the others. Which is to be expected to an extent since you cannot cater to everyone's tastes. Those niche corners for specific things could be handled by 3pp while WotC focused on their own focused projects and the core.

The niche products won because they weren't as generic and of better quality than the WotC ones.

It was good for WotC, but they never took full advantage of increasing the quality of material since they didn't really perceive anyone as being competitive with them.

WotC had what you suggested in the form of the STL, and still OGL material was just as good if not better than that paid for licensed material.

Had their only been the STL then the player population wouldn't have advanced to be able to the numbers it had under the OGL edition. There just wouldn't have been enough of those niches covered.

That is the thing with closed and open systems. The closed system strives to control itself by closing it off from others. It works. The open system strives to increase performance by competition.

The open system would have worked better for WotC had they fully understood it and actually viewed others as competition. When they found out it was too late and people using the OGL had already taken a strong foothold and WotC needed 4th edition in order to make a stand again.

IF the 4th edition 3pp license for a cost exists now to where people use it, then WotC now has the closed system you say should have been done for the OGL edition.

It seems that closed system isn't working out so well, or at least not as well as the open system of the OGL.