D&D 5E Hope for an open GSL?

[Henry]

If WotC goes OGL again they would need to make sure their subscription tools were better than anyone elses as they need to provide some form of value add.

This is an axiom for all "open source" projects ever. If I want my wireless LAN to work on my Linux Box, I COULD DL Fedora or CentOS for free, and either write my own drivers or learn how to compile the driver off of someone else's work to function with my computer,

OR

I buy a license from Red Hat and have the latest driver for my WLAN at my fingertips, because they did that work for me.

(OR
OPTION C: Buy from windows and lose support when the WLAN's original manufacturer goes belly-up or stops support.)

 

[Hussar]

Okay.

Originally Posted by Alzrius
Presumably the same way they [WotC] were able to sell Core Rulebooks in the 3E era despite the Hypertext SRD and PCGen being out there.

Umm, how does this show that free online tools wouldn't detract from the DDI? Additionally, we don't actually have any idea how much of a cooling effect the Hypertext SRD had on book sales, if any. It might have sold books, it might not have. Neither you nor I can make any comment on that.

Originally Posted by IronWolf
I think you do it by making better tools. While Paizo might not have a character gen tool, there are what appear to be pretty successful character generators out there that people pay to use. I'm looking at you Hero Lab. Hero Lab isn't exactly cheap and contains information already readily available on the d20pfsrd. It even has PC Gen for competition, yet it seems to have a solid customer base despite they repackage freely available rules. It is a very good character generator and people will pay for that.

Add other perks to DDI that people want to pay for. Online character storage in the cloud accessible from a multitude of devices. There are any number of things they could do to steer people towards DDI with enhanced perks while releasing OGL.

"Pretty successful" character generator. How successful is it? Do you know? Does anyone? And, again, how does this prove that an OGL 5e wouldn't pull people away from WOTC's services? After all, why wouldn't people shell out for Hero Lab's 4e character builder instead of WOTC's? How much better does WOTC have to be? Online storage? Really? Good grief, WE HAVE THAT NOW. There's an Iphone app for it. There's already free online character storage sites for 4e - they don't do character generation though. But, with an Open 5e, they could easily do both.

Originally Posted by harpy
I agree.

Paizo releases the vast bulk of their material as open content under the OGL. The only stuff that isn't open content is the fluff. They are doing great and they don't even have a DI web app.

One of the successes from Pathfinder is that it's easy to get into the game. There are at least a dozen people I've personally hooked onto Pathfinder because access to the rules was free. Eventually all of these people bought the core book and many went on to buy heaps of material, despite the fact that it's all free.

WotC could likewise just release all of their rule material as open content. What they need to do though is recognize that if they want to become a $50 million a year product then they need to transform themselves into more of a software product than a traditional print product. The end goal is to make a DI product that people will flock to because it's where everything is at in D&D.

This has nothing to do with the question. And it's pretty telling that Paizo has no online tools whatsoever. Do you really think they'd skip out on a buck if they thought it would be worth it? I'd point to Pathfinder as a perfect example of why the DDI and OGL don't play nicely together.

Originally Posted by Henry
...and the same way Hero Labs is making pretty decent money off of the Official Pathfinder Character Generator, despite it costing 50 bucks or so to get the core books for it. I ponied up, because at the time there was no (and still is no) decent FREE Pathfinder Character Generator out there, because "free" usually means "volunteer" -- and the number of people willing to put the real time in to make things like Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, the adventure paths, etc. actually available to these generators is just not there.

If you're dedicated enough, you can volunteer for PCGen, learn their .lst structures, and put all that content in, talk to developers or code yourself when there's a new mechanic that needs to be implemented, etc. --

OR

you can go shell out 30 bucks for hero lab, and 30 bucks for APG, UM, and UC, and POOF! done. I'm not the only one who's done it -- last I heard, they were doing pretty well for themselves (not "million dollar company" well, but making a small profit.)

Just because it's OGL, doesn't mean free beats it every time. Most of the "free" stuff is just because of the reference documents -- freebies someone had to sit down and actually put lots of man-hours into are relatively uncommon.

The plural of anecdote is not data. Or something like that. But, again, how would this benefit WOTC to allow competing services when it has absolutely no reason to. This service offers a great character builder. People choose it over WOTC's and can do so because 5e is OGL. WOTC is losing money because of the OGL. It needs to make that money back somehow or it's not worth doing.

Thus, we're back to square one. Will they sell enough PHB's because of the OGL to make up for the lost revenue from the OGL?

 

[Jawsh]

Are you kidding?

You might be the only person I know who seems to be arguing that Dragon and Dungeon Magazines are the reason people sign up for DDI. Because those are the only two things you get that aren't strictly about "the rules".

The Character Builder? All about the rules. Monster Builder? All about the rules. Rules Compendium? Duh. And believe it or not... it is THOSE three items that have inspired people to sign up. People want programs that allow you to easily manipulate the rules to create a character, manipulate the rules to create a monster, or check out the rules quickly. Dragon and Dungeon are just little extra things we get in addition to it.

You seem to have misread my argument. The Character Builder isn't just rules. It's software. You can't compare the Hypertext SRD to the Character Builder or Monster Builder.

If people are signing up for DDI solely for the rules, then WotC is ripping them off. I don't believe that is the case though. I think the various tools on DDI are worth a subcription. I was a subscriber for a while, and I'm not demanding my money back. I chose not to renew, and I think that's fine.

HTML and plaintext FOR FREE is more worthwhile and just as usable as the "pretty" UI interfaces that WotC has made for their programs for 6 bucks a month. And you are downgrading the desire and skill of many of our community who would spend many of their off-work hours building these programs if they could. Someone would make a monster builder just as a thought exercise, or because they wanted a monster builder that could add templates to monster automatically (cause that's something people have been clamoring for since the beginning of the MB). Believe me... if someone was allowed to make these things for 4E, they would. Even if to just "stick it" to Wizards of the Coast.

I don't doubt that they could build it. The question is whether they'd be willing to support it, and willing to work all the bugs out of it. That's real, actual work, and work that WotC can do better (admittedly WotC sucks at it, but at least they do it).

 

[Hussar]

The only thing you seem not to be convinced about is the degree of the losses that the DDI would incur. People are saying it's not as bad as you think it is. I think you were the one who claimed that the losses would be $500,000/month. That's hyperbole.

No, you misread. I said that it's currently making about $500 K/month on the DDI. Anything that detracts from that would need to bring the money back somehow.

I don't know if I should be making moral arguments for an inhuman corporation like WotC, but we expect the customers to act morally and not pirate the material, so I think it should be fair to expect WotC to act morally too. The fact is, charging a DDI subscription for just the rules is not a good value, and it's not moral. WotC should not take their customers' money and give them only the rules in return.

Wow. Just wow. The owner of an IP has a moral obligation to give it to you in the form that you want? Really?

There's a distinction you're not making between the rules themselves, and the tools used to manipulate them. Packaging bare rules is easy. Making tools is hard. People bitch about WotC because WotC is big, and we expect more out of the industry leader. People don't bitch about 3rd party tools because they tend to be free, and people expect less from 3rd parties. But the 3rd party tools are invariably worse than WotC's offerings. There are more bugs and less support in 3rd party solutions.

This still doesn't change the fact that every person who chooses a non-WOTC option is a loss for WOTC.

As a labor of love, some gamer who's also a programmer in his day job might code some tools to use the OGL. However, what he won't do is support it.

Again, really? I use Maptool. It's currently on Build 87 for the current version. New builds generally come out every couple of months tweaking new support.

And you know this how? Is there a poll I missed?

True. I don't know this. But, you're the first person I've ever heard of try to claim that it's Dungeon and Dragon that are driving the DDI.

Not necessarily. I am arguing for complete openness on WotC's part. I want to see a true Open Gaming License. However, there are still provisions possible to prevent software from using the Open Gaming Content.

I totally get what you get out of an OGL. I get that. I understand. But, throughout this, you've failed to tell me what WOTC gets out of this deal, other than screwed.

 

[Hussar]

You seem to have misread my argument. The Character Builder isn't just rules. It's software. You can't compare the Hypertext SRD to the Character Builder or Monster Builder.

If people are signing up for DDI solely for the rules, then WotC is ripping them off. I don't believe that is the case though. I think the various tools on DDI are worth a subcription. I was a subscriber for a while, and I'm not demanding my money back. I chose not to renew, and I think that's fine.



I don't doubt that they could build it. The question is whether they'd be willing to support it, and willing to work all the bugs out of it. That's real, actual work, and work that WotC can do better (admittedly WotC sucks at it, but at least they do it).

Did you miss the part where this was ALREADY DONE ONCE. The Ema's site that got smacked with a C&D (which I linked up thread) had an online character builder along with online storage. And it was on tap before WOTC got its own character builder online.

With an OGL 4e, Ema's site would have remained in business and there would have been nothing WOTC could do about it.

It's not a case of this being theoretical. It's already happened.

 

[IronWolf]

"Pretty successful" character generator. How successful is it? Do you know? Does anyone?

Yeah, no numbers from me on how successful it is. It gets great reviews, does what it says it will do and I see it recommended by a lot of people. That's all I have.

Keep in mind though, you have about as much for any "position" you've presented. We can carry on a discussion with us both admitting we don't have facts to back it up and this talk is all theory. Frankly, I enjoy discussing theory and subjective ideas to see what other people think and realize they don't have concrete facts to back their viewpoint up. We simply aren't privy to that information on either side.

What several of us are saying is that we think it is possible to make money via value-adds even with the rules being OGL. You seem to disagree. But you don't have facts backing up your position either.

After all, why wouldn't people shell out for Hero Lab's 4e character builder instead of WOTC's? How much better does WOTC have to be? Online storage? Really? Good grief, WE HAVE THAT NOW. There's an Iphone app for it. There's already free online character storage sites for 4e - they don't do character generation though. But, with an Open 5e, they could easily do both.

They could decide to use Hero Lab's 4e generator. Wizards would need to make theirs more valuable and worth paying for. They could likely do it to. Wizards should be able to provide a pretty integrated package and have the resources to back that up.

Despite what you said, it isn't easy to make this stuff all work in conjuction. It takes resources to do so. Using Pathfinder again for the reference - all the free character generators lag behind in getting content added even though the content is freely available. It is only the pay for ones that keep up with the content releases Paizo makes and really only one of those is near constantly current to my knowledge. This are the areas where WotC would have an advantage at making their electronic offerings the one to pay for.

 

[Jawsh]

Wow. Just wow. The owner of an IP has a moral obligation to give it to you in the form that you want? Really?

Yes, and I have a moral obligation not to pirate their IP. Give and take.

True. I don't know this. But, you're the first person I've ever heard of try to claim that it's Dungeon and Dragon that are driving the DDI.

I don't know what's so hard to believe about that. I wasn't actually claiming that Dragon and Dungeon are the sole drivers. But let's say I am making that argument. People used to spend quite a bit more money to get the physical magazines back in the Dead Tree Era. Whatever Dungeon's and Dragon's subscriber numbers were when they were still physical magazines, a huge portion of that audience followed them into the digital realm, and subscribed to DDI because they were used to being subscribers to the magazines.

I totally get what you get out of an OGL. I get that. I understand. But, throughout this, you've failed to tell me what WOTC gets out of this deal, other than screwed.

Without an OGL, WotC doesn't have my support. I, and a great many other customers, will go to Paizo, or some other company. The TRPG market continues to be split, and D&D never rises to the prominence it once had.

 

[IronWolf]

This still doesn't change the fact that every person who chooses a non-WOTC option is a loss for WOTC.

Not embracing the OGL for 4e also cost them customers too though. They do need to weigh that. And quite possibly the scale comes down on the side of not releasing the rules under the OGL, we'll find out where that scale tilts when the licensing terms for D&D Next comes out.

Again, really? I use Maptool. It's currently on Build 87 for the current version. New builds generally come out every couple of months tweaking new support.

I love MapTool, great VTT and is certainly my preferred VTT. I know the dev is working on getting a .88 out soon (.87 was released early October I believe?), but I think his paying job is slowing that down a bit. I love community supported projects, but they have their downsides. This is where WotC can take an edge to increase their value-add.

With an OGL 4e, Ema's site would have remained in business and there would have been nothing WOTC could do about it.

Yep, it would have remained in business. Would it have been as good as a WotC offering? Just because a site has a character generator up doesn't mean it is good or will be kept up to date as time goes on. One only has to look at the Pathfinder character generators to see that they are out there, but can't keep up with the rule supplements. This detracts from their use significantly. So simply having a character generator online does not mean it is actual competition to WotC.

 

[dmccoy1693]

... and coax Paizo back on board

That ship sailed. My read of Paizo says they're not going to be a licensee of anyone ever again. The loss of the Dungeon and Dragon licenses could have sank the company. Alot of good things happened in their favor (not the least of which was a top notch CEO and a whole gang of top notch designers works really, really hard not to lose their jobs) and now they're on their own. I don't think that they'll go back to the way things were before.

A safer bet for WotC would be to try to get some of the new batch of publishers (such as my own company) to be early adopters. We're agile and willing to experiment.

And back to the topic at hand. I don't think we'll see 5E being OGL. I think the 5E GSL will be alot more open than the 4E version, but I'm not willing to bet we'll see WotC use the OGL again.

 

[The Halfling]

I'd rather see a looser GSL, than see WotC go the fool's route and embrace the OGL again.

The OGL cost WotC 2 game systems....completely. D&D and d20 Modern. i see the comment that Mutants and Masterminds didn't hurt WotC's sales of D&D, but it did. Does anyone remember WotC's announcement for a d20 Supers game? Killed. Sales that never materialized because there existed a product that used their same system and was a market leader in that genre. d20 Modern...subsumed by the more focused Spycraft.

WotC, or any company actually, has no moral compulsion to offer up its system for free. This is not a morality play. WotC has ethical standards to maintain, but has no other obligation to the community at large. In fact, this self created issue that plagues WotC probably serves as a warning to other major publishers to NOT to go this route. Where are White Wolf, Games Workshop, Steve Jackson Games, ICE, Hero Games, etc. in this moral conundrum? Paizo is OGL b/c they have to be. No other "major" publisher has touched it with a 10 meter cattle prod.

The best stuff that 3pp gave out of the OGL, wasn't the rules. Most of that was crap. The best stuff was the campaign worlds and adventures. Scarred Lands, Ptolus, Freeport, Kalamar, Goodman Games Known World ...that is what made 3e.

All the good things could have still been done with the GSL had WotC been punctual and a tad less restrictive. I look at Paizo's AP's and I see adventures that could have been pulled off better with the 4e ruleset. I say that because 4e really needed a company like Paizo to breathe life into the newborn 4e ruleset. Over the years of DM'ing I have grown to dislike the 3e ruleset, but I will give props to Paizo for production value and storylines. 4e needed a soul from the onset, and even as a 4e lover, it was missing that for a few years.