Statement on OGL from WotC

Micah Sweet · Nov 22, 2022

LordEntrails said:
No, wrong. Most D&D customers do not follow the leading edge of WotC's decisions. Compare the number of customers to sales numbers, YT watches, Tweets or any metric you want. You will find that very few D&D customers and players actually follow things to the level of detail you are suggesting. A very small minority, like ENWorld etc, actually follow this stuff.

Yes, 3PP content providers are aware of this (mostly?). But has been shown in other threads, the OGL does not go away. The ability to create 3PP content for One D&D really does not change. Heck, we don't even know what One D&D is yet. It hasn't been published yet. It's a stragey, not (yet) a set of rules.

What I mean is, if WotC changes the game, customers will follow where WotC leads.

Bolares · Nov 22, 2022

Umbran said:
Yes, well, they did choose a business model that makes then dependent on another company. That entails risk.

A short lead time, where they are surprised that changes are coming, wouldn't be better.

Yeah this. I'm all for WotC having third party designrs in mind and not turn their backs to them. But I really don't expect third party products to take priority in their decision making. If taking a long time would benefit their product I don't think they are obliged to change that because it will make the suplemental market suffer.

glass · Nov 22, 2022

Clint_L said:
I mean that there is no .5 edition of 5e.

Not yet, but unless things change quite dramatically there is going to be.

Clint_L said:
WotC have been crystal clear that they do not want to continue the editions model.

WotC also tried to claim 3.5 wasn't a new edition. Nobody bought it then either.

Alzrius · Nov 22, 2022

glass said:
WotC also tried to claim 3.5 wasn't a new edition. Nobody bought it then either.

I'm reminded of what Shannon Appelcline wrote for his product history of D&D 4E's Player Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands (affiliate link):

What a Difference an Edition Makes: The Compatibility. When Mearls began working on Essentials, one of his main priorities was keeping it totally compatible with previous 4e books. With the release of Heroes of the Fallen Lands, players could now see that changes were indeed pretty minimal, involving: errata; updated Feat and Magic Item systems; and updated philosophies for building characters. Of these, the difference between the character builds was the largest, and had the most possibility to be incompatible.

But the designers felt they weren't

Mearls paraphrased designer Rich Baker when he said, "the choice between a traditional build and an Essentials build would basically reflect different play styles". Baker expanded on this, saying "It’s perfectly ok if, at the same table, Joe is playing a Fighter straight out of the Players Handbook, with all of the power selections that he would ordinarily have had, and Dave, sitting next to him, is playing a Slayer, out of Essentials. Those Characters, essentially, are built the same, and are transparent to each other".

But that's not at all how the D&D roleplaying community treated the new rules. Between late 2010 and early 2011, 4e players seemed to fracture into "traditional" gamers and "Essentials" gamers. At first there were edition wars over whether Essentials had replaced the core rules, then for the next year each new D&D book was scrutinized for whether it was Essentials or traditional.

So, there's no mechanical reason not to use core and Essentials products together, but you could similarly have said that 3e books could be used with D&D 3.5e (2003) with almost no problem. In both cases, the roleplaying community disagreed.

darjr · Nov 22, 2022

glass said:
Not yet, but unless things change quite dramatically there is going to be.

WotC also tried to claim 3.5 wasn't a new edition. Nobody bought it then either.

They literally put 3.5 on the cover.

This is getting ridiculous.

Mark Craddock · Nov 22, 2022

darjr said:
So dealing with the devilish details, like actually making the SRD, might just be on the back burner.

Maybe.

I think people should realize we need a full version of One D&D as a set of rules before we can get an SRD.

Undrave · Nov 22, 2022

Deset Gled said:
Isn't that kind of a problem? I would have expected a corporation like Hasbro to be dealing with IP legalities/questions in the very early phases of a pro

They're probably waiting until they have a full ruleset before deciding what to put in it.

Sorcerers Apprentice · Nov 22, 2022

Micah Sweet said:
What I mean is, if WotC changes the game, customers will follow where WotC leads.

Unless they change it in a way that most customers really don't like, in which case we might end up with another Pathfinder situation.

Reynard · Nov 22, 2022

darjr said:
They literally put 3.5 on the cover.

This is getting ridiculous.

I think folks are talking past one another and putting different definitions in the same rhetorical space, which can't turn out well. If one person thinks the definition of a new edition is defined entire by what is printed on the cover or designated by the publisher, and another thinks is is a matter of content and compatibility regardless of what the Publisher says, those two people aren't ever going to be able to agree and discussion is pointless.

glass · Nov 22, 2022

darjr said:
They literally put 3.5 on the cover.

....and a sidebar just inside the front cover saying "it's not a new edition, honest!" But by all means, don't let the facts get in the way of insulting me. Again.