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

[MNblockhead]

D&D is the dominant player that crowds out smaller games and denies the light and exposure for other rule systems. Brands do not thrive in shadows. Especially when entering into a recession / economic downturn.

No, it is a massive spotlight that if it went away would leave the hobby in darkness.

I mean, I hadn't even heard of Pathfinder before I started playing 5e. What other game publisher has the marketing power to make people completely outside the TTRPG hobby aware of their existence?

 

[Mistwell]

This is a non sequitur. Customers liking the D&D brand will not lead to people investigating or being interested in other non-D&D ttrpg. They might stick with 5e, transfer to 1D&D or give up altogether.

D&D is the dominant player that crowds out smaller games and denies the light and exposure for other rule systems. Brands do not thrive in shadows. Especially when entering into a recession / economic downturn.

A rising tide lifts all boats. That's not just a saying. ICv2 reports on sales and they've said as D&D does better, the games below D&D also do better.

The biggest barrier is just getting people to go from not playing RPGs to playing their first RPG. It's a whole lot easier to move someone from playing D&D to playing Pathfinder or something else, than it is to move them from playing no RPGs to directly playing Pathfinder or whatever other non-D&D game. Because the later requires a human to directly invite you to a game and encourage you to play.

D&D comes with it's own built in brand recognition - you can just see the Starter Set at Target, recognize what it is immediately because you watched Stanger Things (or whatever other brand exposure you've had, like a movie), and buy and try it. That just doesn't happen with any other RPG like it can with D&D.

 

[overgeeked]

But the fact that DnD has done so well certainly got me back into the hobby and led to me reading discussion boards, going to conventions and local gaming stores, and finding other games to try.

So you got back into gaming because 5E made a lot of money?

What other TTRPG has a company like Hasbro and its marketing power behind it?

None. That’s part of the problem.

If DnD were to go away, existing players might buy a lot more, but I think that fewer new people would be attracted to the hobby and it would sink back into being an obscure niche hobby.

Except you’re forgetting pop culture. The two main vectors for non-gamers finding out about D&D through pop culture over the last decade had been Stranger Things and Critical Role. Unless something drastic happens, CR and Stranger Things will continue to exist. They will keep going. CR is far more likely to continue putting out new content longer than Stranger Things. That’s not going away.

Word of mouth is still a thing. All the players that exist now, who like the hobby and want to keep engaging with it, will keep on doing so. Regardless of what D&D or WotC does. With D&D around, sucking up the majority of the money and audience, most fans will just stick with them. WotC sours enough fans or tanks the new edition, then interested fans will migrate to other games. We’ve literally been through this before with 4E and Paizo’s Pathfinder.

At a guess, the “new Pathfinder” will be Critical Role. All they have to do is put out a book of rules and their millions of fans will jump on it. If the rules are close to 5E, great. If not, their fans will still snatch it up. And just like that, you have a giant new competitor to D&D. They instantly have millions of eyes on their products and game system. Week after week after week. Oh, and their animated series on Amazon Prime. You want advertising that rivals Hasbro? There you go. I’d be surprised if they didn’t join up with MCDM to do something, considering they’re friends. Mercer can homebrew some classes and worldbuild better than most, but Colville has the design chops. CR has the fan base. WotC tanks it with the OGL…blam. “New Pathfinder.”

 

[pemerton]

Of course, WotC's commercial benefit is hardly our concern.

I didn't say it wasn't. But there are posters in this thread, and the other OGL threads, arguing that WotC is making a commercial mistake by proposing a different licensing regime for its revised SRD. I am saying that I think WotC is a more reliable judge of its commercial interests than are those posters.

 

[pemerton]

Lol. Let's shut down the whole discussion then.

Does the discussion have more to offer than ungrounded speculation about WotC's licensing plans and their commercial prospects?

As someone who regularly posts on these boards, almost always in the past six years about non-D&D play, I would say that one obstacle to the take-up of non-D&D games is that most posters seem to have a very strong preference for the D&D approach in which the GM controls backstory, and framing, and consequences. Whereas, the non-D&D games that I think are the most interesting are precisely those which depart from one or more of these key D&D premises.

Look at the thread on dungeon crawls, and see how many posters are not interested in dungeon crawl play beyond the aesthetics of being in a dungeon. Look at the thread on story, and see how many posters seem either ignorant of, or uninterested in, how extant RPGs like Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel support non-GM-authored story-oriented RPGing. Look at the threads on DM workloads, and see how few posts suggest that the solution to workloads is to adopt approaches that don't require the GM to do the work.

The success or failure of WotC's licensing plans is not going to change this basic orientation of the (apparent) bulk of RPGers.

 

[Maxperson]

I think it's certainly reasonable - more than reasonable - to wish for a permissive OGL if (i) you are a publisher whose business model depends on it, of (ii) you are a consumer of RPG products who wants the offerings of those licensed works.

But I'm not very persuaded by these attempts to argue that WotC doesn't know what it is doing in its own field of business, and hence that a permissive OGL is needed for WotC's own commercial benefit. I tend to think that WotC is the most reliable judge of that.

Bad business decisions happen all the time.

New Coke
The Edsel
The company that passed on buying Google for 750k
Blockbuster passing on Netflix at 50 million

Just to name a few.

 

[pemerton]

Bad business decisions happen all the time.

New Coke
The Edsel
The company that passed on buying Google for 750k
Blockbuster passing on Netflix at 50 million

Just to name a few.

No one says they don't. That doesn't give me any reason to think that anyone in this thread has a better grasp than WotC does of its commercial interests.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I didn't say it wasn't. But there are posters in this thread, and the other OGL threads, arguing that WotC is making a commercial mistake by proposing a different licensing regime for its revised SRD. I am saying that I think WotC is a more reliable judge of its commercial interests than are those posters.

Yeah, I don't know about that. I think they're making a consumer mistake, from my perspective.

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, I don't know about that. I think they're making a consumer mistake, from my perspective.

Does a "consumer mistake, from your perspective" mean that you wish they would publish something different?

 

[pogre]

Malmuria I hope that was not your video, because I agree with much of your opening post, but the video was pure clickbait nonsense.

I would say that one obstacle to the take-up of non-D&D games is that most posters seem to have a very strong preference for the D&D approach in which the GM controls backstory, and framing, and consequences. Whereas, the non-D&D games that I think are the most interesting are precisely those which depart from one or more of these key D&D premises.

100%. Now, unlike you, I really enjoy running that kind of game.

However, like you, I enjoy running a number of other games - I would say at least 50% of the folks at my 5e games automatically pass on any campaign that is not 5e. They pass for precisely the reasons you mention - even though, I am not sure all of them would articulate it in this way.