Would Paizo Make a Better Steward for Our Hobby?

[gamerprinter]

Doesn't this pretty much exactly describe d20 and everything D20 was meant to do? One system that is applicable to a wide range of games, taking over the hobby to create network externalities that will continue to prop up the hobby and keep it healthy?

Are you saying that D20 was bad for the hobby? That the OGL was bad for the hobby?

Is d20 owned by a single company? No, so what I am discussing is not d20/OGL, rather D&D or any specific company owned game system. While D&D and Pathfinder are both based on d20/OGL, each are their own rule systems - correct? Understanding this, should any one publisher of any d20 based game be the steward for all of d20 (and every other non-OGL system)? I think only a not-for-profit, with membership including all/many RPG publishers and player-based entity could serve as 'steward' - not any commercial enterprise. The question regards stewardship of the entire hobby.

Nice way to twist definitions to color my meaning though! Congrats for that!

 

[GreyLord]

Erm 3rd ed did have the OGL to contend with. All those retroclones for example. The push was not there though as 3rd ed did mostly unify the fanbase as it was very popular and swamped the AD&D hold outs. The OSR revival one could argue is partly triggered by 3rd ed players going back to the retroclones as if you get burned out on d20 and did not like 4th ed there is really only one way to go.

You could have created a clone in 2000 or 2001. I think C&C was the 1st one to turn up in 2004. 3rd ed did have to deal with the OGL, everyone was to busy playing 3rd ed though.

But the OGL is for D20...NOT AD&D.

Most AD&D folks who didn't like the change either dropped out, lapsed, or stopped playing or were forced to convert.

the actual OGL as an AD&D machine wasn't tested and no one really thought it would be able to be done when 3e came out.

See Bill's post for 3e converter's who are STILL in denial about how 3e went about the same process as 4e.

The turbulence was FAR greater in my opinion when 3e came about in regards to the older players protesting the new system.

It was only LATER that people started thinking about whether or not they could recreate the older editions from D20 OGL's...at least in part.

OSRIC was actually the document wanting to make it so that documents could be made in support of AD&D without offending the trademark (it wasn't actually originally going to be a game in and of itself, just a reference document to enable other material to be made).

It was not based on OGL...but went into an area which no one went. They are LUCKY in that WotC did NOT pursue legal matters. They based OSRIC and much of the OSR is based on the idea that you cannot copyright a mechanic and you cannot trademark it. HOWEVER...formulas and other items in that regard CAN actually fall under some trademark laws (depending on the nation) and even fall under Patent law (which is far more important in regards to math, number tables, and many other items linked into RPGs). It's not really worth the time to pursue it for WotC overall I think, but in SOME nations a legal case could be made (but even if won, it's not worth it as 100% of 0 is still...0).

So in truth, 3e had the same process and marketing as 4e, and in some ways was even MORE offensive (WotC hatred among many old schoolers is so fierce as that they won't touch WotC products no matter HOW nice WotC is...to the present day even).

However, many of the 3e/3.5 fans do practice hypocrisy when they argue against 4e, because they ignore the precedence for 4e's marketing campaign that was created when 3e came out. 3e's marketing was the template for 4e's marketing.

People were more experienced and far more invested in OGL by the time 4e came out, and hence the D&D was in actuality competing with itself at that time, as opposed to when 3e came out.

So, 3e had the exact same marketing, and the same offensiveness as 4e, the difference was that there was no real alternative for D&D once WotC killed it off initially. 3e hardcores who hated 2e and older editions though, tend NOT to recognize just how the parallels were between the 3e marketing and the 4e marketing.

I'm not trying to make excuses here for 4e, but there are many who are so in love with WotC and hated AD&D, D&D, and Gygax so much, they've tried to flavor 3e's entrance differently then 4e.

I think if AD&D had continued to be published at that time, 3e and it's release could have turned out far differently. Hence, arguments that if Paizo (and I would include all the D20 products that continued after 4e was released) hadn't created PF, things may have turned out differently with 4e...I think may hold merit.

I'm not saying 4e would or would not have been more successful, but looking at 3e, which set the precedence (as in a legal sense), I think there may be some backing in regards to that idea.

PS: And despite what you may think, I am actually a very HUGE fan of PF. However, I find it rather ironic that when the same tactics were used in marketing 4e in regards to 3e, that you basically get the same reaction. When 3e was release you DID have the same reactions as 4e, and most of you who were there should be able to recall that. The difference was that there really wasn't any other alternative in regards to obtaining hardcopy of materials being currently printed for D&D unless you went with 3e. There WAS no AD&D hardcopy materials or even simulations of it being printed at that time. The closest would be Palladium, and if you're going to go with Palladium, you might as well do 3e anyways.

 

[Bluenose]

Really?
Really???
There's no one else? How about: People who don't like gamist rules.

Why would people who don't like gamist rules be playing D&D at all?

Doesn't this pretty much exactly describe d20 and everything D20 was meant to do? One system that is applicable to a wide range of games, taking over the hobby to create network externalities that will continue to prop up the hobby and keep it healthy?

Are you saying that D20 was bad for the hobby? That the OGL was bad for the hobby?

The OGL was bad for several games that tried to convert from their existing systems to take advantage of the glut of D20 product that came out in the first few years after 2000. The fans weren't getting new material for the existing system, and D20 was such a poor match for many of the existing systems that the game that resulted was rarely compatible with the existing settings.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That is so far away from how me and my friends play I'm at a loss for words...

But so long as you enjoy it all the power to you.

You have to keep in mind that this group was so slavishly devoted to the rules beyond all else that we had a character who went up 4 levels by picking up one spellbook since our DM was able to be convinced that a spellbook was a collection of scrolls and that we were using the XP for magic items found rule from 1e therefore if we find a spellbook we should get XP as if we found a scroll of every spell in it. We managed to defeat the Wizard who had the spellbook by rules lawyering the DM's plans. The mage was supposed to teleport away after projecting an illusion of themselves taunting us and then creating an illusion of the room collapsing.

The full details escape me now, but our Wizard disbelieved both illusions. Then he pointed out that the range of the spell that projected the illusion was short, so the person who cast them had to be around here somewhere. I'm not sure if the DM planned on them being around...but our Wizard, Gord pointed out that the enemy Wizard HAD to be nearby according to the rules...so the enemy Wizard was just invisible nearby. He cast see invisible and then used a Wand of Telekinesis to steal the Rod of Teleportation that the enemy was about to use to get away. Then, I believe he cast some spell to kill her outright.

The Wizards original plan was to taunt us, then after trapping us under invisible rubble to walk through a secret passage, retrieve her belongings and then teleport out. We managed to thwart her plans, get her spellbook, and have our Wizard go up 4 levels. All of which the DM didn't want and was kind of annoyed happened. The NPC was supposed to become a reoccurring villain and she had to change all her plans.

Another time the same DM said "Don't +1 swords only add to damage?" and one of our players said "No, +1 to hit and damage". She said "That doesn't sound right to me. I think it's only damage." He said "Alright, if I can prove to you that I'm wrong, can I create a character with average equipment for his homeland for your game?" She said "Sure". She was wrong. So, he created a character who rode a dragon and had +5 fullplate and a +5 longsword...since that was standard equipment for the Dragonriders in a city that he invented and added to her game. He was, of course, one of the dragonriders....at first level. She agreed to it because she felt she had to, having lost the bet. The rest of the players thought she was insane for agreeing to both the bet and adhering to it afterwards.

That same DM allowed a Netbook of Spells that was making its rounds on the BBS scene at the time. One of the spells extended the range of the next spell you cast by turning it into MILES instead of feet. Our Wizard then used his spells to destroy...I believe it was Luskan from days travel away. We had a psion who asked if he could invent his his own powers. She said yes, so he came back with a power called "Lesser Spell" and another one called "Greater Spell". One let him recreate any Wizard of Cleric Spell of 5th level or lower and the other one let him do 9th level or lower. She approved them because she liked creativity. So, he used the one psionic power to create crystal based copies of himself who knew all his powers and could essentially cast every Wizard spell in the book many, many times per day. He decorated his house with them so no one could break in.

The character I was given as one of my first characters, Majoru Oakheart was originally run by Gord, the Wizard player. At one point they broke into Menzoberenzan(sp?) and stole a bunch of stuff. So the Matron of the largest house in the city sent her daughter to get it back. He used a Rod of Beguiling to charm her and made an amazing roll that worked through the magic resistance. His command? Here, put this on. It was a Helm of Opposite Alignment. The newly charmed, lawful good Drow princess decided her mission wasn't the best idea anymore. He then used 2 scrolls of wish he had lying around to Wish both effects permanent. He then asked her to marry him.

After I took over that character, I started learning to powergame. I kept trying to get lower and lower ACs. The problem is, I had already reached -10 and had the best magic items I could find. So, I asked her if there were such things as Bracers of AC -3 jokingly. She said yes...and gave me them as treasure. I said that was fine, but I had reached the limit on AC for the game so they were useless. She house ruled a new limit of -13.

Overall, all that game taught us was that you shouldn't allow random 3rd party supplements into your game because they break everything. If you want an NPC to escape, you're the DM...find some way to allow them to escape. Don't allow everything players come up with simply because you want to say yes, it causes disastrous results. It also taught me that players will do everything in their power to get more powerful and you should keep constant vigilance to make sure that doesn't happen. Players will be more than happy to attempt to disguise their powergaming as simply out of the box thinking.

It should be noted that we played at least 8 different D&D games in that group that we switched between weekly. The only one with the severe problems was her game. Because the other DMs would just say no to most ideas people came up with.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It's also unfair to put all the blame of 4e's failure on Paizo and competition. Every other edition of D&D had fantasy competition and survived.
WotC made a couple other errors that could have really hurt, such as making it easy to buy DDI and skip books, errata that devalued the books, the GSL, and accessories that made it easy to skip the core books, and the like.

I'm certainly not disagreeing that WOTC made a bunch of mistakes that hurt them. I just think those mistakes wouldn't have cost them as much as they did had it not been for Pathfinder. People are willing to tolerate some missteps when they are really invested in something. People didn't invest in 4e because they had another option.

I still maintain that other editions of D&D didn't have REAL competition. When I played 2e D&D, we knew of the existence of Rolemaster, Palladium Fantasy, and the like. No one seriously considered switching to any of them. They weren't D&D. D&D was the first and best game. The rest, according to most people I knew were simply pale copies that got things wrong.

We felt the same way while were were playing 3e. It was the true heir to the crown...there were other games, but we always came back to the original. Not only were we used to the concepts from D&D, but it invoked the flavor we wanted and there were always new players to play with when we needed them. You could go into a gaming store and say "Anyone want to join my D&D campaign?" and get 3 offers to join. Try that for any other game and get blank stares.

I think Pathfinder was the first time that people looked at another game and said "Wait...that's just D&D with a different name. I can play that."

It's too small of a sample to be representational of the audience, and I'm not people who were excited enough about 4e to travel to a convention are the average.

I remember looking at those files as well and not being wowed, but I wasn't entirely disappointed by the game until I saw the PHB.

Perhaps. I can't speak to that. I just know that the hardcore LG community(the ones going to D&D Experience) were also the most hardcore D&D players in general. These were the people who made trips to other cities in order to spend 72 hours doing nothing but playing D&D just so they could get their character some more XP. I know, I was one of them.

Most of them were "leaders" of the D&D community in general. They were the DMs at their D&D gamesdays and local conventions. They almost all had their own D&D groups with 6 players back home.

In theory, if you convince these people, you convince the community at large.

Really?
Really???
There's no one else? How about: People who don't like gamist rules. People who like strategy over tactics. People in the middle of campaign. People who preferred gritty adventures to heroic adventures.

I played a lot of LG as well and certainly got tired of that game and 3e at the end. But the experience was really not representational of 3e as a whole. The token warrior level was a running joke in LG but was likely rare in the rest of the hobby.

I'm sure there were other people outside of the con. However, I think LG pretty much only attracts those who like gamist rules. After all, we've agreed to a bunch of rules simply to play LG. You get 52 Time Units and once they are gone your character can no longer adventure(and adventures took a minimum of 1 TU even if they lasted an hour of game time). If you find a magic item in an adventure, everyone in the group can buy a copy of it...so that it's fair for everyone. There is a GP limit on each adventure to make sure everyone advances at the same rate. Gold over the limit simply vanishes. No spell continues beyond the end of an adventure.

People who were playing LG on a regular basis understood that some rules were allowed to be gamist to make sure everyone had a good time and that the game and entire campaign was balanced.

It's certainly no coincidence that 4e ended up with the rules it did. RPGA players were the majority of the primary playtesters. The most common problems in Living Greyhawk were because of extremely open rules. So, it isn't a surprise that LG players pushed for a system with more predictability.

So, no, at least at the con, the only people who didn't like the system were people who were heavily invested in breaking the old one using their rules knowledge.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

PS: And despite what you may think, I am actually a very HUGE fan of PF. However, I find it rather ironic that when the same tactics were used in marketing 4e in regards to 3e, that you basically get the same reaction. When 3e was release you DID have the same reactions as 4e, and most of you who were there should be able to recall that. The difference was that there really wasn't any other alternative in regards to obtaining hardcopy of materials being currently printed for D&D unless you went with 3e. There WAS no AD&D hardcopy materials or even simulations of it being printed at that time. The closest would be Palladium, and if you're going to go with Palladium, you might as well do 3e anyways.

For us the process of going from 2e to 3e and 3.5e to 4e DID go almost precisely the same.

We'd been playing 2e for years, we were all aware of its problems and limitations and they frustrated us on a regular basis. I was getting tired of DMing and dealing with its issues all the time. WOTC came along and promised a new game free of 2e's problems. They had a serious of articles where they pointed out all of the same problems I'd noticed with 2e and said how the new edition wouldn't have those problems. Obviously, they played the same game I did and learned the same lessons. So we switched the day it came out. So did everyone we knew. Basically, there was only two groups of people we knew: Those who stopped playing D&D due to time constraints and those who switched to 3.5e.

At the end of 3.5e, I was getting tired of running 3.5e D&D. We were getting bogged down in all its problems.. I didn't even want to DM anymore because I was getting sick of working around all the issues in 3.5e. Then, WOTC announced 4e and had a series of articles that pointed out the problems with 3.5e and how they were going to fix them in 4e. They were the same issues I noticed. Obviously they played the same game as I did and learned the same lessons. So we switched the day it came out.

Unlike the conversion to 3e, however, there was a large debate over switching amongst a large number of people I played with. A bunch of them were new players. They hadn't gone through the 2e to 3e switch and found the idea that they'd have to learn new rules and buy new books appalling. This was long before anyone knew what the rules were. Just as soon as it was announced.

I can only guess that after about 5 years of no products coming out for 2e that any of our group actually wanted to buy, we were truly ready to move on. 2e felt over. The last couple of years of products seemed like filler that nobody wanted.

I also felt the same way about the last year worth of 3.5e products. The same was done and was being kept on life support. It could have floundered for another 2 or 3 years like that. I'm glad WOTC put it out of its misery. However, I can understand that without that floundering period many of my friends were simply not ready to move on.

 

[Hussar]

Is d20 owned by a single company? No, so what I am discussing is not d20/OGL, rather D&D or any specific company owned game system. While D&D and Pathfinder are both based on d20/OGL, each are their own rule systems - correct? Understanding this, should any one publisher of any d20 based game be the steward for all of d20 (and every other non-OGL system)? I think only a not-for-profit, with membership including all/many RPG publishers and player-based entity could serve as 'steward' - not any commercial enterprise. The question regards stewardship of the entire hobby.

Nice way to twist definitions to color my meaning though! Congrats for that!

I wasn't twisting anything. You claimed that it's a bad thing for any single game system to dominate the hobby. But, this is precisely what the d20 OGL was meant to do. Gamers might stray from D&D, but, they'd stay within the d20 family and hopefully drift back after some time. They wouldn't need to learn new systems.

Heck, while 4e and Pathfinder are their own rules systems, the fact that they are both d20 make them far, far mechanically closer than say, Pathfinder and Savage Worlds. To the point where it's not that terribly difficult to adapt material from one system to the other. Whereas trying to bolt on GURPS mechanics to 4e or Pathfinder would be much more difficult.

There's a reason that RPG.Net was so vehemently opposed to D20, and it's exactly for the reason you gave - a single, dominant system that absorbed most of the hobby for quite a while. It took the bubble bursting and the d20 glut to go away before you started seeing any significant innovation in games outside of d20. Savage Worlds doesn't make an appearance until 2003, Burning Wheel is 2002. And, really, it's not until about 2004 or 2005 before you start seeing indie games really start to make an impact.

So, I'll ask again, do you see the OGL as a bad thing for the hobby?

 

[Kinak]

I was unaware of this. Though, I suspect that had he liked 4e a lot, Mon Motha would have eventually been scrapped as not needed.

Taking the wayback machine to April of that year, Paizo was interested in doing some 4e products alongside the Pathfinder RPG.

Then the initial version of the GSL was released. And that's all she wrote.

I think the perception that 4e had already lost...long before it actually had was part of its downfall. Which, for a lot of people, started with the announcement that Paizo had tried out the new edition and decided to make an entirely new game rather than write adventures for 4e. After all, if a company that ran Dungeon and Dragon Magazine for years hated the new edition so much that they felt they needed to make their own game...well, that surely meant the new game was bad.

I think you're greatly overestimating that PR hit.

Paizo doing their own thing was certainly fodder for internet arguments, but even then people understood that Paizo would be shy about hitching their wagon back to WotC after what happened with Dungeon and Dragon.

Which isn't to say there weren't a bunch of arguments about dragonborn, the GSL, tieflings, WotC's "tone," square fireballs, the GSL, WoW, AEDU, missing races/classes, and the GSL. Paizo came up, but I honestly remember talking more about Necromancer Games.

Having run 4e at that same convention, I can tell you that the response was overwhelmingly positive. I had one player at one table who insisted on nitpicking the rules and complaining they didn't make any sense and I had one argument with a player at the end of the convention about the fact that square fireballs didn't make any sense and moving on angles being the same speed as straight meant that 4e broke the laws of physics. However, other than those 2 incidents, I ran probably 50 people through the Dungeon Delve or through the intro adventure and most people ended up really liking the game.

Yeah, if they can't even capture the people who travel to the D&D Experience, they're pretty hosed.

But I think there are simpler answers to why that didn't translate to the rest of the gaming populace than blaming it all on Jason not liking your favorite edition. A lot of people looked at 4e and decided it wasn't for them or Pathfinder never would have gotten off the ground.

It's not scientific, but at least a little illuminating, to look at the "What would you be playing if Pathfinder didn't exist" thread. I don't claim to have percentages, but a lot of people weren't going to play 4th regardless of Pathfinder. Looking through, there's a mix of not spending any money in the hobby and dividing the hobby far beyond a simple 4e/Pathfinder split.

It's entirely possible that, even if Paizo had somehow gotten on the 4e bandwagon (despite the delays and the GSL), we'd be having this conversation about Kenzer or Malhovac or Goodman or Green Ronin or some other company. Someone had to do it eventually, Paizo was just forced to take the initiative.

Would 4e have done better without competition? Basic economics says yes.

But that's a long way from proving that the game industry as a whole is better run as a monopoly.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[billd91]

See Bill's post for 3e converter's who are STILL in denial about how 3e went about the same process as 4e.

Well isn't that nice. Because I disagree with you, I have a psychological problem.

The turbulence was FAR greater in my opinion when 3e came about in regards to the older players protesting the new system.

And you're entitled to have that opinion. I, however, disagree and it's not like I wasn't involved online in the run up to and publication of the new edition. I remember some heated posts on ADND-L over it. There was a sizeable contingent who didn't think AD&D needed a new, major edition (I was one of them). But the issue died down in relatively short order as people started to figure out what the new edition was about and investigated it.

So in truth, 3e had the same process and marketing as 4e, and in some ways was even MORE offensive (WotC hatred among many old schoolers is so fierce as that they won't touch WotC products no matter HOW nice WotC is...to the present day even).

However, many of the 3e/3.5 fans do practice hypocrisy when they argue against 4e, because they ignore the precedence for 4e's marketing campaign that was created when 3e came out. 3e's marketing was the template for 4e's marketing.

So, 3e had the exact same marketing, and the same offensiveness as 4e, the difference was that there was no real alternative for D&D once WotC killed it off initially. 3e hardcores who hated 2e and older editions though, tend NOT to recognize just how the parallels were between the 3e marketing and the 4e marketing.

Hatred and vitriol aren't necessarily indicators of an objective or rational assessment of difference in the campaigns. For one thing, it helps to look at the state of the market. WotC had done a lot of pump priming in the years they owned TSR before 3e's release. Their online policies were different and a lot more permissive compared to TSR's days of C&D letters. They posted free content online. They put the materials that were in the pipeline through to the printer even though they knew they were going to be putting out another edition in a short time. And they were dealing with a market that had taken a few hits because of TSR's money woes.

All of that makes it kind of hard to call the marketing exactly the same. The context in which it was conducted was markedly different. Additionally, the marketing included plenty of bones thrown to 1e AD&D fans over TSR's stewardship of the game during the 2e era. Demons and devils were back as demons and devils. Half-orcs were returned to the core. Even the assassin made a comeback. The Back the Dungeon motto tried to harken back to the days of 1e modules rather than the heavier-handed story pushes in later published adventures.

It doesn't take any hatred of 2e or Gygax to see those differences and think WotC pulled off an edition introduction with 3e better than they did with 4e. 2e was my favorite incarnation of the game - in some ways it's better than 3e. In others, not so much. I'd happily play an edition a bit more like it but with some more of the customization options that 3e/PF have developed (so Next is looking like a positive edition).

I think if AD&D had continued to be published at that time, 3e and it's release could have turned out far differently. Hence, arguments that if Paizo (and I would include all the D20 products that continued after 4e was released) hadn't created PF, things may have turned out differently with 4e...I think may hold merit.

Maybe, but the point I have is nobody did things like this in any significant way. Stopping production on AD&D wasn't borne of arrogance - it was borne of normal procedure, just as TSR did with 2e. Plus, it's not like there weren't alternatives to buying and playing 3e. The activity at Dragonsfoot showed that amply enough - and yet 3e was still a pretty big success.

Even if you do believe that there was a lack of an alternative to 3e once WotC stopped supporting 2e, you can still argue there are differences in the 4e effort. The OGL that wasn't there for 2e was obviously there for 3e. A segment of the market had obviously hived off to form the old school movement with Dragonsfoot and then the OSR-style games. In that environment, wouldn't following the 3e marketing template suggest considerably more arrogance? They had plenty of evidence there would be detractors, a market split of some undeterminable size, and a method of creating a safe haven for their style of gaming - either via messageboard communities or by using the OGL. And they still thought people would have no alternative but to upgrade to 4e?

Ultimately, I'm just not seeing much that's persuasive in your point of view.

 

[Jester David]

Why would people who don't like gamist rules be playing D&D at all?

Because "gamist" is not binary with games either being all gamist or all simulationist.

Not every version of D&D has had the same level of gamist design. Often the gamist design was a simplification of something complex where simulation would break down or be too slow.