D&D 5E Gamehole Con Live Tweeting Perkins Panel

[GMforPowergamers]

You're blaming this on the OGL? I think the "fracturing" and "etribalism" occurred a bit later than that, and that the worst edition war in my memory was in 2008-09, not back in the halcyon days of the OGL (2000-03ish).

Please remember this is all my opinion... and it is 1 of 2 problems I have with the OGL...

Every edition had a lag. A point when people didn't want to change. There are early adaptors, but the big push comes later, first with secondary adpters who see the early ones likeing it, then in a second wave wanting to try new things and slowly growing impatient with the lack of support for there old edition... there are hold overs every time though.

This time the early adaptors changed to 4e, but then pathfinder came out... and where the second wave was now divided (some going to pathfinder and some to 4e) we had a large on set of tribalism... I was at gen con the year Piazo sold there beta rules in a hard back, and was in line at Mcdonalds across the street listening to someone reading it telling his friend he would never support a money grabing **** company like WotC... and when my friend with me asked him how he could justify spending money on one new edition over another, it got pretty rude. I saw this again and again at FLGS, COns, even on these boards. then came the fact that the wave never came of people sick of a non supported edition...

point blank I blame the OGL for pathfinder, and I blame pathfinder for a lot of fratured games, and even some lost friends.

Yes, true, and people seem to forget that Paizo--whatever their strengths--are riding on the coat-tails of WotC and TSR. While I wouldn't applaud Paizo necessarily for excessive creativity or innovation, what I do applaud them for is how they handled their product. They did D&D right. They created a product format, and a quality level, that has set the standard for the last five years.

I will respectively disagree...

You're being vague about what your problem is with the OGL, other than the possible relation to creating another Pathfinder and/or edition war, which to me is tenuous at best.

well the second problem was more immediate, and had multi sub layers to it. It increased bloat of rules, and created some big issues of balance. 3rd parties were very hit or miss, and if a DM wasn't paying close attention you had problems... now there are ways to deal with them, but each just made new ones. My friends went from "Anything" to "WotC allowed, everything else case by case" to just "Only WotC" in a few years time. The real problems where way to nuianced to bring up, so I will speak in generality...

3rd parties taking good idea's and making what looks on the surface to be a good system that once you really look into is horrable broken and messes up games with no quality control

3rd parties and wotc offering variant on the same idea forcing DMs to choose and when 2 different players want different thigns caused problems

3rd parties reprinting player handbooks

3rd parties stealing an edtion and egging on the edition wars


edit: the irony is I am so sick of Edition wars, and now that I think about it, that is what this is going to turn into... people are already bad mouthing 4e (so far my fav edition of the game) and here I am trying to explain my thoughts, and someone is going to twist it into me hateing pizo (even thought I own both of there card games and love them). I don't hate Piazo, a lot of good people work there, I do hate what they started, and a lot of there fans carried out over the last 6 or 7 years though...

 

[Nebulous]

W

Yes, true, and people seem to forget that Paizo--whatever their strengths--are riding on the coat-tails of WotC and TSR. While I wouldn't applaud Paizo necessarily for excessive creativity or innovation, what I do applaud them for is how they handled their product. They did D&D right. They created a product format, and a quality level, that has set the standard for the last five years.

Paizo did an amazing job with the D&D game and kept it going strong; but....they did very little innovative. They took a pre-existing set of rules that was years in the making by someone else, and with probably 8 years of PLAYTESTING during the lifespan of 3.x, and then added some patches. This is not to belittle the quality or talent behind Paizo at all, but just to put it into perspective.

I think it is likely that given the (unknown) nature of the 5e OGL, Paizo will be able to continue making their high quality line of adventure paths and miniature tie-ins much as they have been.

 

[Morrus]

point blank I blame the OGL for pathfinder, and I blame pathfinder for a lot of fratured games, and even some lost friends.

I'm sorry, man. But if a game ruined your friendships with people (multiple people? really?), that's on you and your friends, not the game. A game does not have that power. It's just a game.

This community was fractured by the Edition Wars. A full half of the community relocated to paizo.com in a fairly short period. I don't blame Pathfinder; I blame myself for letting it happen. It has been a long 5 years rebuilding.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm sorry, man. But if a game ruined your friendships with people (multiple people? really?), that's on you and your friends, not the game. A game does not have that power. It's just a game.

This community was fractured by the Edition Wars. A full half of the community relocated to paizo.com in a fairly short period. I don't blame Pathfinder; I blame myself for letting it happen. It has been a long 5 years rebuilding.

I don't even think you can blame yourself Morrus, it was unpredictable. But i find it unreasonable to blame a game of all things for ruined friendships, especially when any and all other versions of other games were still and still are available. I do understand the gamer mentality, we are very passionate about our hobby, and for the older crowd, it has been a part of our life since childhood...like Santa Claus.

 

[dd.stevenson]

It is our intention to bring back the OGL. We just don't know when we are going to do it yet.

I'm having trouble making sense of this. If they don't know when they're doing it, then I guess it's not going to be what gets announced in two months? So what is going to be announced in two months? And if they can't bring the OGL back at the beginning of the edition lifecycle, why the heck does he think they'll be able to bring it back nearer to the end, when the expected value of such a licensing has diminished and the risks have increased?

It sounds like good news, just I'm not sure how to reconcile it with everything else I know about 5E and the OGL business model.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm sorry, man. But if a game ruined your friendships with people (multiple people? really?), that's on you and your friends, not the game. A game does not have that power. It's just a game.

This community was fractured by the Edition Wars. A full half of the community relocated to paizo.com in a fairly short period. I don't blame Pathfinder; I blame myself for letting it happen. It has been a long 5 years rebuilding.

I don't even think you can blame yourself Morrus, it was unpredictable. But i find it unreasonable to blame a game of all things for ruined friendships, especially when any and all other versions of other games were still and still are available. I do understand the gamer mentality, we are very passionate about our hobby, and for the older crowd, it has been a part of our life since childhood...like Santa Claus.

OK, I will explain again (it seems like I must justfy myself like this everytime the Piazo/ogl thing is discussed)

I was part of a large and growing 2e D&D group, when 3e came out we lost one or two people but still kept growing... by the time 4e was announced we had twentysomething people alternating DMing and playing... most time we only meet for gameing, and holidays. When the 4e/pathfinder split happened our game group split as well... I tried a few times to go back to the group playing pathfinder, but I don't like the game much. I really enjoy 4e (and did enjoy next playtest and am about to launch a 5e game) but I really don't want to play pathfinder ever again... so I now have 2 game nights, and both have "full tables" grand total between them is 9 people. the others I see every now and then, exchange emails or twitters. However instead of seeing y friends every week I bearly know them now.

Some of them became quite militant in the edition war as well, while I tried pathfinder, and even was willing to comprmise with going back to 3.5, Tony and Danny think 4e is destroying roleplaing, and while listening to EW redric online is bad in person is far worse... so I don't think it unreasonable to blame a game of all things for lost or degraded friendships...

 

[Nebulous]

Some of them became quite militant in the edition war as well, while I tried pathfinder, and even was willing to comprmise with going back to 3.5, Tony and Danny think 4e is destroying roleplaing, and while listening to EW redric online is bad in person is far worse... so I don't think it unreasonable to blame a game of all things for lost or degraded friendships...

Ok, sorry if I made it sound like your troubles were unfounded, i'm quite sure they were real. I mean if someone were trying to force ME to play 4e again, now that 5e is out, and somehow made me feel foolish for wanting to play 5e...well, that could generate some hostility.

 

[Morrus]

OK, I will explain again (it seems like I must justfy myself like this everytime the Piazo/ogl thing is discussed)

I was part of a large and growing 2e D&D group, when 3e came out we lost one or two people but still kept growing... by the time 4e was announced we had twentysomething people alternating DMing and playing... most time we only meet for gameing, and holidays. When the 4e/pathfinder split happened our game group split as well... I tried a few times to go back to the group playing pathfinder, but I don't like the game much. I really enjoy 4e (and did enjoy next playtest and am about to launch a 5e game) but I really don't want to play pathfinder ever again... so I now have 2 game nights, and both have "full tables" grand total between them is 9 people. the others I see every now and then, exchange emails or twitters. However instead of seeing y friends every week I bearly know them now.

Some of them became quite militant in the edition war as well, while I tried pathfinder, and even was willing to comprmise with going back to 3.5, Tony and Danny think 4e is destroying roleplaing, and while listening to EW redric online is bad in person is far worse... so I don't think it unreasonable to blame a game of all things for lost or degraded friendships...

That does suck. But it's some douchebags treating friends in an unacceptable way. That's their fault, not a game's fault. Place blame where it's deserved.

A game cannot harm a friendship. Only people can do that.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Ok, sorry if I made it sound like your troubles were unfounded, i'm quite sure they were real. I mean if someone were trying to force ME to play 4e again, now that 5e is out, and somehow made me feel foolish for wanting to play 5e...well, that could generate some hostility.

thank you, sometimes I think people don't get what I'm trying to say... D&D made me a lot of friends over the years, but cost me some too.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That does suck. But it's some douchebags treating friends in an unacceptable way. That's their fault, not a game's fault. Place blame where it's deserved.

A game cannot harm a friendship. Only people can do that.

oh there was some jerk behavior too, but the part where the game grew in 2 paths, and this being the only time it did, didn't help.

Pathfinder/4e edition wars were worse (IMO) then 3e/2e ones and worse still then 2e/1e. Heck I think they were by far the worst rift in gameing to date... if Pathfinder had never happened I postulate that 4e would not have been so divisive... there would be early adaptors and mid adaptors and late adaptors and people left behind... but with no "going forward" with 3e all of those numbers would swell...

I also feel that somewhere along the way the idea of "Piazo should be true D&D" and "WotC is true D&D" could not have been so bad if it ws just 3e/4e...