D&D (2024) Would a OneDND closed/restricted license be good, actually?

[Reynard]

I think there was a Pathfinder-sized hole in their risk-mitigation strategy. And yet, they still would have been fine if they’d designed a game that more of their customers wanted to play.

So, no, they were not reliable judges.

 

[Greg Benage]

So whose fault was that then? To me that shows that they do not always know best / make mistakes

Probably different people driving the GSL and the 4e decisions. So while I agree that they make mistakes, and I’m sure @pemerton agrees, they’re still in a much better position to make good decisions than any of us are.

 

[Malmuria]

Watching this now and typing as I go…

First reason: “5e is not the best version of D&D” … “So what is the best version? That’s completely subjective”…nothing to add, off to a great start

Second: ‘5e is not even the best version of 5e”, then goes on to suggest such 5e games as 13th Age, SotDD, WH40K Sigmar, Torchbearer, DCC or OSE… No complaints about recommendations but saying they are a better 5e is misleading at best. Also, wasn’t there something in #1 about this being completely subjective

3: “WotC thinks you are livestock” because of the conference where they said it is undermonetized. WotC wanting players to buy stuff more frequently (whether subscriptions, or branching out with movies / action figures / …) is like milking a cow. I am not aware of any company that wants to sell me less, so I guess they all think I am livestock

4: WotC squeezes writers, no idea, no opinion, doubt they are worse than others. TSR certainly was but I am sure he likes TSR…rest is pure hyperbole about “contract writers screaming in anguish as their supervisors ask them for more and more pages until they collapse into writing filler”. 3PP on the other hand is where you can make a living and see “unbridled creativity”. Garbage does not adequately describe this point

5: RPGs are more than D&D, didn’t finish past the opening line because that feels like the second point again, just reflavored. This is where all the suggestions that were out of place in 2 should be

So he really has one point: there are also other RPGs, try them as some might cater more to what you like. Could have said that in 2 min or so, and show the ones from 2, but I guess that is not good for youtube’s algorithm

In broad strokes, I saw the video as critiquing wotc 5e as a set of products. This is an opinionated critique, but not to my mind a particularly controversial or rare set of criticisms. The first component is that 5e is too "kitchen sink" both in gameplay and theme across its product line, leading to a situation where players try to do "x, but in 5e" and end up frustrated. The second component is that wotc's actual products are of a lesser standard than those of many other game companies. This is again an opinionated position but not an unreasonable one. The usability of their books, including the core books (the phb's index, the dmg's whole organization) is routinely criticized by players. Their adventure paths seem conceptually rich (many based in concepts from classic modules) but whose deficiencies have also spawned a thriving scene of dmsguild products that help dms fix and navigate the content of the $50 book they just bought.

At least some of these products seem to be the result of their contract-heavy employment practices. Descent into Avernus seems the worst, written by a host of contract writers with little organization and reportedly changing deliverables (the whole "Balder's Gate" part being a late addition). The recent Spelljammer set has been criticized for its higher price and reduced content, including character options that don't fit well with the included adventure. More troubling is that wotc has skimped on cultural consultants, relying instead on project leads (e.g. Chris Perkins) who have routinely failed to catch the inclusion of cultural sterotypes in their products. In some cases, their shoddy editing process introduced problematic content without the consent of writers, again on contract.

The deficiencies of wotc products, as products, start to become very clear when you look at the indie ttrpg landscape. Wotc creating a walled garden may incite some people to look at that larger landscape, and onednd will come up pale in comparison.

 

[mamba]

Probably different people driving the GSL and the 4e decisions.

maybe, doesn’t really matter because whoever is driving the decisions now is a different person still. The point remains, despite their best efforts they can miscalculate / make mistakes. I do not think they are any more immune from that now than they were then

So while I agree that they make mistakes, and I’m sure @pemerton agrees, they’re still in a much better position to make good decisions than any of us are.

in theory yes, they know the market better, did their research, we are talking from our guts - but they were back then too and it did not help them

Am I certain this will be a big failure for them, not at all. Do I still think the risk / reward for the fees is just not there, yes.

I understand them tightening the conditions about what it can be used for. I really do not understand the register/report/fee side of things. To me that is a mistake, whether they are right or not remains to be seen

 

[Malmuria]

The fact that I play mostly by VTT is another hurdle. For example, I backed DCC Dying Earth, which should be delivered in March or April, and am seriously considering running a Dying Earth campaign. But if I want to run it online, I'll have to do all the work to prep it for the VTT. None of the stretch goals included any VTT assets. Assuming that I can copy or screen cap the maps from the PDFs, I don't mind prepping the maps too much and I'm okay using generic tokens, but creating the system and tweaking the character sheet is more than I want to deal with. Maybe I can run it more theater of the mind, but even having to think through this makes it seem like work. It is much easier just sticking with a system I'm familiar with and already have a lot of support for in my VTT.

Thank you for this perspective. Though, it suggests my thesis is wrong, in that if wotc provides a vtt experience that automates gameplay and makes prep easier, it will be more appealing than ttrpg products (e.g. books) that provide different gameplay experiences.

 

[Malmuria]

If some companies are producing great monster books for 5E and others are making good adventures and campaign settings and so on, those people are still playing 5E and embedded in the 5E ecosystem. If those talented creators were doing that for other game systems, then those players would no longer be in that 5E ecosystem and would not benefit WotC with book sales, Beyond subscriptions, etc...

This is my point actually...a restricted license would by necessity push people out of the 5e ecosystem, to the benefit of other games.

 

[Sacrosanct]

So far the only thing with certainty is the number of people making youtube video for clickbait, as if Youtube means we should take their opinion as more credible than the random guy ranting in the game store.

It doesn't.

 

[pemerton]

I am certain they spent a lot more time and money on figuring that out, I am not convinced that means that they are not miscalculating here. 4e seems like a good counterpoint to the claim that they always know what they are doing

Were they a reliable judge of that when they came up with and implemented the GSL?

Individuals in charge of corporations are not somehow infallible. That should be obvious.

Well, by all accounts 4e was a commercial success. It was clearly a necessary precursor, in design terms, to 5e (which in mechanical terms has more in common with 4e than with AD&D or 3E).

I don't assert that anyone is infallible. Neither WotC, nor you, nor me. But I still think that WotC is a more reliable judge of what will serve its commercial interests than any poster in this thread.

 

[Yaarel]

(Do we have enough threads speculating about the OGL? No, no we do not.)

Thesis/hot take: a restricted and less open license from wotc for the forthcoming "onednd" would inadvertently benefit the ttrpg hobby more broadly. While wotc will remain dominant, a restricted license and "walled garden" infrastructure will push some players, streamers, and independent creators toward non-wotc-dnd games. Many third party projects will still be possible under the existing open game license, and thus onednd will be but one "branch" off the root of 5e-derived games--others, like levelup, mcdm products, or rules lite hacks like 5 torches deep, would exist alongside it. Further, being cut off from the onednd market may encourage third parties to develop content for other systems.

Wait.

Youre saying, the proposed non-open-license will injure the WotC corporation, and therefore be good for D&D?

LOL!

 

[Malmuria]

The need will likely never be overwhelming unless we hit Wall-E levels of dystopia (and I personally see extinction long before then)

Happy new year everyone!