A small handful of new 5E designers' quotes: Design Goals, Healers, Art, OGL

[ProtoClone]

The OGL allowed Pathfinder to happen. That is a serious strategic flaw when combined with the intention of fourth edition's rules changes. So either the OGL shouldn't have happened in its exact form or 4th edition shouldn't have in its form. (and I agree with both as independent options)

I just can't see the creation of "Pathfinder" as a flaw, strategic or otherwise. Having "Pathfinder" rise as a result of what WOTC has done really is good for both companies. If Paizo had accepted 4e as the next step, we wouldn't be talking 5e right now, IMHO. The OGL did exactly what it was supposed to and as a result it created an actual "What if WOTC went 3.75 instead" for everyone to look at, even WOTC and Hasbro.

 

[Kobold Boots]

I just can't see the creation of "Pathfinder" as a flaw, strategic or otherwise. Having "Pathfinder" rise as a result of what WOTC has done really is good for both companies. If Paizo had accepted 4e as the next step, we wouldn't be talking 5e right now, IMHO. The OGL did exactly what it was supposed to and as a result it created an actual "What if WOTC went 3.75 instead" for everyone to look at, even WOTC and Hasbro.

If WOTC is not making money off of Pathfinder sales, the creation of Pathfinder as a result of the OGL is a serious strategic flaw from a business perspective as it's WOTC IP that makes it possible in its current form.

Nuff said.

 

[Kobold Boots]

The creators of the OGL have been pretty open that people creating their own games as well as supplements was what they expected, and they deliberately made it so that if WotC did flake then somebody would create something compatible.

WotC flaked, and somebody did create something compatible.

I do not call a license doing exactly what it was designed to do a failure - I call the WotC folks that ignored the intent of the license, well, a lot of very bad things indeed.

The failure was not in the license, it was in WotC believing that D&D the brand had enough swing to succeed regardless of dropping that license. (And ignoring their playtesters, and in alienating a fair number of potential customers, and....) Hubris, more than anything else.

Well, if you're looking at things from the perspective of a long-time player only and only concerned about the game system as something that gets support from any old place, sure.

If you're looking at it from a business perspective, with the intention of ensuring the long term liquidity and business success of the company that currently owns the D&D license it's a different matter.

When you work for a company and you're responsible for a product line, yes, you're responsible for a product line. It's not your child and you're not responsible for it's long term growth when it's owned by some other company. You're responsible for ensuring it's growth and the success of the firm that's paying you and allowing you to put food on your table.

So while the designers of the OGL said "Hey the point was to ensure that the game lived on, even if WoTC flaked", just admitting that is saying "Hey screw the company I'm working with, the product is more important. That's an artist's view, not a business person's view and is ethically off if you're being paid by the company and not an independent artist.

Are the people responsible for the OGL still working at WoTC? I'd guess not.

There are plenty of examples of licensing that allow for the growth of IP in an open way, without giving away the farm and allowing a competitor to take over a core competency. Being harsh and admittedly this is my personal opinion based on limited information known:

1. Paizo's management looks brilliant.
2. WoTC's management of this specific issue was horrible and was either caused by high level negligence worthy of damages or replacement of legal counsel.

Meh, nuff said on this matter. I'm really enjoying a Pathfinder campaign right now and while I am running a 4e campaign at present, It's on hold. Major issue with announcing a fifth edition is that I don't want to put more effort into fourth.

If I was sitting in a chair at Paizo, I'd be looking for a way to hit a death punch on D&D in the next year, probably by stealing away Mearls and Cook. (Unless there was some social or cultural data that suggested that the success of my product line was directly related to the marketing that WoTC was doing or their product in general.)

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Well, if you're looking at things from the perspective of a long-time player only and only concerned about the game system as something that gets support from any old place, sure.

If you're looking at it from a business perspective, with the intention of ensuring the long term liquidity and business success of the company that currently owns the D&D license it's a different matter.

When you work for a company and you're responsible for a product line, yes, you're responsible for a product line. It's not your child and you're not responsible for it's long term growth when it's owned by some other company. You're responsible for ensuring it's growth and the success of the firm that's paying you and allowing you to put food on your table.

So while the designers of the OGL said "Hey the point was to ensure that the game lived on, even if WoTC flaked", just admitting that is saying "Hey screw the company I'm working with, the product is more important. That's an artist's view, not a business person's view and is ethically off if you're being paid by the company and not an independent artist.

Actually, at that point it was the company that they owned.

See the difference there?

At the time they were independent artists.

The Auld Grump

 

[Henry]

If WOTC is not making money off of Pathfinder sales, the creation of Pathfinder as a result of the OGL is a serious strategic flaw from a business perspective as it's WOTC IP that makes it possible in its current form.

People are frequently making this assumption, and I maintain it's inaccurate; There's no guarantee that in a non-OGL world that WotC would have made an edition change and the majority of current Pathfinder players would have just "gone for the ride"; more likely, they would have done what the 1st edition and 2nd edition fans before them did -- just kept playing what they had, or worse, dropped dormant on the hobby altogether. There's plenty of precedent, in the tens of thousands of anecdotal stories I've seen over the past decade from wizards.com, dragonsfoot.org, enworld.org, rpg.net, rec.games.frp.dnd, montecook.com, and a dozen other sites who didn't follow along. Lost sales? in my opinion, more like lost opportunity.

 

[Kobold Boots]

People are frequently making this assumption, and I maintain it's inaccurate; There's no guarantee that in a non-OGL world that WotC would have made an edition change and the majority of current Pathfinder players would have just "gone for the ride"; more likely, they would have done what the 1st edition and 2nd edition fans before them did -- just kept playing what they had, or worse, dropped dormant on the hobby altogether. There's plenty of precedent, in the tens of thousands of anecdotal stories I've seen over the past decade from wizards.com, dragonsfoot.org, enworld.org, rpg.net, rec.games.frp.dnd, montecook.com, and a dozen other sites who didn't follow along. Lost sales? in my opinion, more like lost opportunity.

That has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

If the OGL was properly written and Pathfinder occurred then WoTC would be seeing royalties or Pathfinder wouldn't exist to compete with D&D.

Statistically there's always going to be a group that doesn't change with an edition update, a group that does and a group that falls away. Since WoTC is making no direct profit off of Pathfinder as it exists now, any profit at all from a new edition out of the existing group of people that are only playing Pathfinder is better than none that presently exists.

Dormancy and the other editions is something that can be cleanly taken away from my argument as dormant players wouldn't be buying Pathfinder or 4th ed. Same with the 1st and 2nd edition-ers.

Of course the problem set is more complicated than any of this as there's obviously a group that buys both 4th and Pathfinder.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Actually, at that point it was the company that they owned.

See the difference there?

At the time they were independent artists.

The Auld Grump

If that's the case and WoTC actually listened to the legal leanings of the independent artists under contract they deserve to be closed down permanently.

Thanks for the history lesson, it's appreciated.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

If that's the case and WoTC actually listened to the legal leanings of the independent artists under contract they deserve to be closed down permanently.

Thanks for the history lesson, it's appreciated.

You didn't actually bother reading the post, did you? WotC did not have them under contract. They owned WotC! They were the people that had created a little company named Wizards of the Coast.

Next time read the danged post.

The Auld Grump

 

[Kobold Boots]

You didn't actually bother reading the post, did you? WotC did not have them under contract. They owned WotC! They were the people that had created a little company named Wizards of the Coast.

Next time read the danged post.

The Auld Grump

There's a difference between reading and comprehension. The term "owned" has a familiar as well as literal use and it failed to dawn on me that you were being literal because people who own a company don't often bend it over and liberally screw it.

As said previously, thanks for the lesson.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

There's a difference between reading and comprehension. The term "owned" has a familiar as well as literal use and it failed to dawn on me that you were being literal because people who own a company don't often bend it over and liberally screw it.

As said previously, thanks for the lesson.

Bear in mind that they had just seen TSR driven into the ground by a horrible, bad, awful ownership and management - look up Lorraine Williams on these forums.

If you read the blog and forum posts I linked to above you will see that they were not certain as to whether WotC would long survive, at least under their management - while WotC was making a lot of money, they themselves were not.

WotC had a lot of valuable properties, most importantly they had Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon.

But they were not liquid assets.

Possibilities included going public - going public does bad things to game companies. They lose control over their own properties. (If you ever wonder why Games Workshop or Hasbro does something that makes no sense... that is why.)

So they protected the game, knowing that they might not be the ones to keep control of their properties. They did not want another Lorraine Williams to kill the game forever.

Instead of going public they ended up selling to Hasbro, and here they actually did make mistakes, forgetting the old adage 'a verbal contract isn't worth the paper that it's written on'.

Marshall's comments are worth reading, but sometimes disheartening....

The Auld Grump