D&D 4E 3rd-Party Publishers' Thoughts on 4E

[MonsterMash]

Of course Mongoose have plenty of other RPG systems either released or coming up than just D20 based ones now with Paranoia and RuneQuest, and the Conan RPG has been a good seller so they're probably less vunerable to closure of content than most of the other publishers.

 

[Warden]

The other question would be if the d20 OGL and SRD were to expire or be made void once the inevitable 4E comes out. If that's the case, what's the stop the rest of us from continuing to pop out material.

Not that it would happen, since no one wants to shoot themselves in the foot when rolling out a new product.

The irony is that I would have thought two years ago that d20 was wearing out its welcome when everyone was releasing the same damn book -- 4 on elves, 3 on dwarves, and the like -- but it's more spread out than ever. There are more books and PDFs out there with enough optional rules and expandable campaign ideas to really expand the genre. Mixed with alternate d20 games, the current version can keep going for at least five more years, I figure.

 

[Rasyr]

Besides Mearls, who else did they recently hire? Perhaps by examining the previous work of these recent hires we could speculate more accurately what changes 4E might make.

I have no idea. Mearls was actually the one who stated that WotC had been hiring developers. I never bothered to find out who.

 

[Rasyr]

The other question would be if the d20 OGL and SRD were to expire or be made void once the inevitable 4E comes out. If that's the case, what's the stop the rest of us from continuing to pop out material.

Nothing really, except that none of this new product would be allowed to use the d20 logo if that were pulled. According to the d20 STL, if the d20 STL were terminated (which is one of the possibilities for 4E) a company would have soemthing like 3 monthes to sell through its inventory, and then it would be required to hide or remove the d20 logo from its products.

However, there are already a number of companies who are preparing themselves for 4E, and are preparign themselves with the thought in mind that it is NOT going to be open for 3rd party products. Mongoose has their line of Pocketbooks, as well as diversifying into other lines and games. Other companies have their own versions of d20 that they can conintue on with ( C&C, M&M, True20, Arcana Evolved, Grimm (or is it Grim Tales - I can never remember), etc..). These folks are all ready to continue on unscathed if the worst happens and 4E comes out sooner rather than later...

Not that it would happen, since no one wants to shoot themselves in the foot when rolling out a new product.

Please note that WotC may not be the ones shooting themselves in the foot. It may happen because of pressures from Hasbro (you know, the company that sued a guy over a parody of a single card from the Monopoly game). A number of folks feel that Hasbro was responsible for 3.5 coming out 2 years earlier than planned. Some of these folks are concerned that it may happen again.

The irony is that I would have thought two years ago that d20 was wearing out its welcome when everyone was releasing the same damn book -- 4 on elves, 3 on dwarves, and the like -- but it's more spread out than ever. There are more books and PDFs out there with enough optional rules and expandable campaign ideas to really expand the genre. Mixed with alternate d20 games, the current version can keep going for at least five more years, I figure.

The entire d20 market is actually starting to fragment, as a number of companies begin doing their own flavor of d20. As they continue on, these fragmentations will eventually move further and further away from the core d20, and the gaming industry will be pretty much back where it was before the OGL (though with many based on d20). Of all the companies, I think that Mongoose is the only one (with the Pocketbook series) who has stayed right there with the core rules.

In fact, I would not be surprised if they have a version of the PPHB ready and waiting to go, a version that contains the rules not found in the SRD. This would, then make them the new WotC/TSR in regards to 3.5 as they would be the publisher of the core book that everybody would then be referring to (since, if 4E is closed, 3rd party publishers would no longer be able to point folks to the PHB). I suspect that this may happen even if 4E is open, as upgrading products would be prohibatively expensive. Then again, I also expect that Matt would never confirm this theory either.

It is just a matter of common business sense to be prepared, especially if you are playing with somebody else's toys.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

The other question would be if the d20 OGL and SRD were to expire or be made void once the inevitable 4E comes out. If that's the case, what's the stop the rest of us from continuing to pop out material.

One would hope if you're going to discuss 4e-- discuss, mind you, let alone publish a magazine-- you'd at least have a functional understanding of the OGL.

 

[Rasyr]

Uh oh. One of those brainy RPG writers who argues a lot on messageboards has replied to my post to discredit it down to the bloody bone. What could Rasyr’s motive be?

Actually, the motive could be very simple. Such as I just don't like Dancey.

The following quotes are from the thread called “Interesting Ryan Dancy comment on lite RPGs“--an interesting thread on page 1 of ENWorld right now. The thread, by the way, is NOT about 4E.

Then later, in a different post in the same thread (which, again, I remind you, is NOT about 4E)...

Nice bit of selective editing and pulling comments out of context. Shoot, I don't even remember what all I said in those posts anymore, but I would hazard a guess I was talking about Mearls' predictions (which DID mention 4E)

Okay, but so what. Those quotes only indicate something if Rasyr discusses his Harp RPG a lot on ENWorld. So, does he discuss Harp a lot on ENWorld?

The following quote is from the same thread as above...

Seems like Rasyr is surprised he hasn’t mentioned Harp in the thread yet.

But you forget to mention that a number of others on that thread HAD been talking about HARP. I was just trying to point out that I was not the one who started the conversation about it.

Anyhow, I'm done. Decide for yourself if I'm right or wrong regarding my earlier post. I'm not going to debate a professional writer unless we're face-to-face, where I can yell and throw things whenever he expertly twists my words around.

You mean just like you are trying to do now? I don't think that I was ever trying to "twist" your words around. I was trying to point out that it was quite possible that you were seeing things that were not actually there.

Just because I believe something (like the immenence of 4E), does not mean that I am trying to scare folks into buying my products. First off, there are many who will switch to 4E without qualms. There are also many who will stay with 3.5 with no problems. And then there are many who will complain about it, and then switch anyways. Personally, I feel that there is a very, very, very tiny percentage who will actually leave D&D/d20 for something else because of 4E.

 

[Warden]

The other question would be if the d20 OGL and SRD were to expire or be made void once the inevitable 4E comes out. If that's the case, what's the stop the rest of us from continuing to pop out material.

That didn't come out right, now that I see what I wrote and the comments that come with it. What if the Licence DIDN'T expire or was unaltered so that 3rd-party publishers could technically continue to use material from the SRD and continually publish their own products while WotC comes out with a new 4E.

Which makes the statement about Wizards not wanting to shoot themselves in the foot by doing so have more warrant then before. And I doubt they'll leave any loopholes for anyone else like Mongoose and the like to just take it over.

 

[Rasyr]

The OGL doesn't and won't expire. The way that it is written, it cannot. Nor can WotC prevent anybody from continueing to use the 3.5 SRD.

However, having said that, I would also like to point out that the OGL has also never been tested in court, and that Hasbro has a reputation for unfounded litigation. While not probable, it is possible that Hasbro could use lawsuits, not to officially stop use of the license, but to win through the attrition of resources of the defendant. If they do this a couple of times, a number of companies will fold to them without going to court.

Now, if WotC decided that they did not want 4E to be open, they would most likely do the following:

1) Remove the license and the SRD from the web. Thus the only way to get it would be through other sources.

2) release 4E using the D&D and d20 logos.

3) Shut down all uses of the d20 STL, as they can rescind this license any time that they want. This would give 3 months for anybody using it to sell through their current stock before being required to destroy said product or cover/hide any logos and/or text used through that license.

It is number 2 that will hurt a lot of companies, more so than the actions of #1, especially for print publishers. PDF publishers will be less affected overall, as they can more easily remove any logos and text and republish the PDFs using just the OGL.

Note that there are a lot of conditional statements in my post here. It all depends upon how things happen.

However, please also note that I have pointed out, in an earlier post, that it appears that a number of companies are already taking this possibility into account, so that if it does happen, they won't be as severely affected.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Hasbro has a reputation for unfounded litigation.

Ridiculous. You must have a very liberal interpretation of "unfounded."

 

[GMSkarka]

One would hope if you're going to discuss 4e-- discuss, mind you, let alone publish a magazine-- you'd at least have a functional understanding of the OGL.

That's exactly what I was thinking....and his "clarification" doesn't really solve the problem.

...and as far as my opinion on a hypothetical 4e: I doubt we'll see it. Hasbro is more interested in leveraging the D&D brand into more lucrative fields (MMORPG, for example) than in bothering to do another ground-up redesign.