D&D 4E Paizo and 4e.

[Erik Mona]

Obviously you unreservedly changed your mind in the interim. So what were they showing you back then that morphed so spectacularly into something you couldn't support?

Lots of promises about how robust and fair the new OGL was going to be, for starters. Also lots of stuff about how the game was going to make the DM's job easier, etc.

But we never got the new OGL in time (and it fell far short of expectations) and we never got a look at the rules before they came out in the store. In the end it was pretty obvious that WotC wanted to take a "go it alone" approach to the edition, so that's what we let them do.

--Erik

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Sorry, my response was not meant to be entirely serious. I just thought a fresh thread with a link to this would have been better, as this pages long thread becomes hard to overlook, once we add 5 or 6 pages....

so the opening post of Holy bovine will then be lost, and a new reader that comes in a few days will be confused...

 

[wedgeski]

Lots of promises about how robust and fair the new OGL was going to be, for starters. Also lots of stuff about how the game was going to make the DM's job easier, etc.

Fair enough. Your problems with the GSL are well-documented and perfectly understandable, but I couldn't see how the game would have changed so much from early previews, on the strength of which you seemed to have got very excited, so as to become something you couldn't support later-on.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Fair enough. Your problems with the GSL are well-documented and perfectly understandable, but I couldn't see how the game would have changed so much from early previews, on the strength of which you seemed to have got very excited, so as to become something you couldn't support later-on.

If the license isn't supportive of 3rd party efforts, especially getting product out the door when the game first launches, what else is there to understand? This is essentially what killed Necromancer games and shelved Tengel Manor, although Clark's got to suck some up on that for not having faith in their 'partners' at Paizo and going with the Pathfinder game immediatelyu.

 

[MerricB]

If the license isn't supportive of 3rd party efforts, especially getting product out the door when the game first launches, what else is there to understand? This is essentially what killed Necromancer games and shelved Tengel Manor, although Clark's got to suck some up on that for not having faith in their 'partners' at Paizo and going with the Pathfinder game immediatelyu.

The GSL is awful. Really, really, awful... and with the loss of Scott Rouse, we also lost anyone in Wizards who was prepared to have a meaningful dialogue with us or support a better GSL.

Still, I wasn't the biggest OGL product consumer. I cared about Necromancer Games and Paizo, but Paizo wasn't primarily an OGL company, rather being an officially licensed provider of product (Dragon/Dungeon magazines).

 

[Imaro]

The GSL is awful. Really, really, awful... and with the loss of Scott Rouse, we also lost anyone in Wizards who was prepared to have a meaningful dialogue with us or support a better GSL.

Still, I wasn't the biggest OGL product consumer. I cared about Necromancer Games and Paizo, but Paizo wasn't primarily an OGL company, rather being an officially licensed provider of product (Dragon/Dungeon magazines).

Yeah, but wasn't Dragon and Dungeon taken in-house before this even occured? If so what exactly was Paizo suppose to do that would be official licensed... and better yet why would they when it could be yanked at any time?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Yeah, but wasn't Dragon and Dungeon taken in-house before this even occured? If so what exactly was Paizo suppose to do that would be official licensed... and better yet why would they when it could be yanked at any time?

But let's not kid outselves here. There was problems with the OGL too. The problem was that it rode the back of WoTC.

The 3.5 horror stores you could hear form Green Ronin and others show cased that relying almost soley on another company's product line is not necessarily the best way to grow your own brand.

 

[MerricB]

Yeah, but wasn't Dragon and Dungeon taken in-house before this even occured? If so what exactly was Paizo suppose to do that would be official licensed... and better yet why would they when it could be yanked at any time?

They were, but Paizo built my appreciation of their product through Dragon & Dungeon magazines; the OGL wasn't a feature of their business at that point. It became important *afterwards*. And I don't regret the problems with the GSL as related to Paizo because Paizo adapted. They made Pathfinder, and (more importantly to me) kept producing Adventure Paths. Necromancer, otoh, dithered and eventually folded. (Frog God games, lacking Clark, doesn't feel the same).

It's really important to remember that although the OGL gave a really nice operating environment (for a time) for 3rd party publishers, ultimately the fact that it doesn't expire doesn't help very much: your existing product drops in value dramatically when the main system shifts. It happened with the 3.5e changeover. The difference between pre-3.5e and post-3.5e is significant for what happened to the 3rd-party publishers.

Doing a licensed property is hard. It's been demonstrated again and again and again. It works for a limited time, but long-term brings its own challenges.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

The 3.5 horror stores you could hear form Green Ronin and others show cased that relying almost soley on another company's product line is not necessarily the best way to grow your own brand.

That's so very, very true. It doesn't matter which product line or which company, either (although there are definitely "safer" companies to work with).

Cheers!

 

[Erik Mona]

I think it's also important to understand that Clark's personal life changed a lot during this period, with him taking on the role of a real-life judge. THAT's the main reason he's not more involved in gaming these days, not the OGL, not the GSL, or any other factor. He simply does not have the time to commit to this stuff these days. Barring that, I suspect he'd be replying to this thread right now.

--Erik