D&D 5E Any word on the gaming license for Next?

[Mark CMG]

What if 4e was OGL? - Because 4e is significantly changed from 3.x, it being OGL itself does not prevent dissatisfied people from moving over to Pathfinder.

By accounts at the time, if 4E had been OGL, there is no PF. Also, many of the changes from 3.XE to 4.XE were done to make it impossible to clone under the OGL. It is unlikely that there would have been many of the changes to naming conventions and mechanics if 4E had been OGL. It is also unlikely 4E would have needed to be as early as it was if so many of their former employees hadn't been working elsewhere and doing such stellar work with 3.XE even without a PF. Look at it this way, if WotC's business model didn't require laying off many of the folks working for Paizo (and elsewhere), all of what Paizo was doing in the run up to 4E and since could have been in-house work at WotC. It's not the OGL that has put WotC in the position in which they find themselves, it's their business model. If PF, M&M, and Dragon Age, among other works produced by former WotC employees, were all WotC products, how much of the market would WotC currently control? It's hard to fathom why WotC execs aren't asking that question instead of waffling on whether the OGL is a good idea, which the continued success of PF and other OGL offshoots seems to confirm time and again.

 

[darjr]

WotC not going OGL is like saying WotC shouldn't make a good product, imho. Their biggest competitor is successful in no small part BECAUSE they are OGL.

WotC refusing to go OGL doesn't make any sense to me. Why would they cripple their product vs the competition on day one?

Did Paizo benefit from the OGL to WotC's detriment? You bet they did. But I don't think any other company could have pulled it off so well. Especially if they themselves were then anti OGL. The past is done, the pie is made, going forward in a sensible manner is now what counts, and going without an OGL will be a big 'go away!' sticker right on the front cover of 5e to many of the very people they hope to attract.

Maybe that isn't what they want, maybe they hope to walk away from those customers and grow by finding and growing a new customer base rapidly or slowly, but I believe them when they say they want to appeal to those customers that stayed away, and the OGL is a big part of that, imho.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Mearls always introduces himself as Senior Manager of R&D, so I don't know if his position completely tracks with Slavicsek's.

I don't either. Stan! describes Mearls as the "head of the business team" ... which I take to mean the D&D business team. That, and Slavicsek's job description, is all I really know for certain.

By the way, I went back and re-read Stan!'s blog post and my memory was completely wrong: Mearls does not report directly to the CEO. I can only assume I got it muddled by assuming that Mearls was a director too and then that a director somehow circumvented the normal VP chain of command. I blame my old friend Asahi.

 

[Dausuul]

WotC not going OGL is like saying WotC shouldn't make a good product, imho. Their biggest competitor is successful in no small part BECAUSE they are OGL.

Specifics, please. In what way is PF successful because of being OGL? How would that success translate to 5E, in a way that could not be accomplished just as easily with a more liberal version of the GSL?

 

[Iosue]

By accounts at the time, if 4E had been OGL, there is no PF.

That's fine for Paizo, but the problem isn't what Paizo felt, or what eventually became Pathfinder. The problem was, for the first time in its history, the old edition was just laying there, ready for any company to pick it up and run with it. That doesn't change if 4e is OGL, as well. All it means is that there'd be an increase in third-party products for 4e. Meanwhile, there was a sizable market of people who didn't want to move on to 4e, and wanted to stay with 3.x. If it hadn't been Paizo, it would have been another company who picked up the baton. Heck, it might have even been Paizo. It's all fine for Paizo to say that at the time they planned to continue providing adventures and other supplementary product for an OGL 4e. But once the ball was dropped, and you had a vocal, eager market of people not wanting to change, and with 3.x being OGL, they didn't have to. With an OGL 4e, Paizo could have contentedly put out some 4e product at the same time as putting out Pathfinder. Somebody was going to do it. There was just too much money being left at the table.

WotC not going OGL is like saying WotC shouldn't make a good product, imho. Their biggest competitor is successful in no small part BECAUSE they are OGL.

Their biggest competitor is successful because they are producing D&D. Typically in the past there was only one company doing that. The OGL allows more.

I don't either. Stan! describes Mearls as the "head of the business team" ... which I take to mean the D&D business team. That, and Slavicsek's job description, is all I really know for certain.

Well, it's not much more specific, but here Mearls introduces himself as "Senior Manager for the R&D team. I basically oversee everything about D&D: the role-playing games, digital games, the board games, basically the whole kit and kaboodle." That does seem to track pretty well with what Slaviscek wrote, though their titles are different.

By the way, I went back and re-read Stan!'s blog post and my memory was completely wrong: Mearls does not report directly to the CEO. I can only assume I got it muddled by assuming that Mearls was a director too and then that a director somehow circumvented the normal VP chain of command. I blame my old friend Asahi.

That post does illuminate the question, IMO. Mearls does have a good deal of authority, but the higher-ups have to sign-off on any intellectual property issues. And there's some cross-department interaction, involved as well. I mean, on the face of it, I have no idea why the V.P. of Human Resources would veto exemptions OK'd by the V.P. of R&D. The legal department, I could see, but H.R.? At any rate, while Mearls is lord of all that he sees in the Land of D&D, decisions such as whether DLIMedia gets C&D'd, or whether Stan! gets his exemptions, or whether Next is OGL are certainly beyond his pay grade.

 

[darjr]

Specifics, please. In what way is PF successful because of being OGL? How would that success translate to 5E, in a way that could not be accomplished just as easily with a more liberal version of the GSL?

First of all I said 'in no small part', I do not think that the OGL is the ONLY secret to their success, not even a little bit.

To be specific there is the fantastic fan support like the magazine Wayfinder. I don't think Wayfinder would be possible quite like it is without the OGL. There is the excellent site http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ which, frankly, can be used to play pathfinder without buying any thing from Paizo. Then there are the quality products and support from great companies like Green Ronin and many others. Much of their support wouldn't quite be the same without the OGL. Then there are the many uber fans producing great things many of whom do so, in part, because of the OGL and the freedom it provides.

Finally there is the fact that if something should happen to Paizo the OGL ensures that the game can live on in publishing. That I do not have to depend on a single entity to ensure the current game I've spent hard earned cash on. Pathfinders very existence is a fine example.

I don't know when WotC will make an announcement about a license. Not stating OGL support for the final 5e, I think, is already a missed opportunity. I wish they would declare sooner rather than later. The longer they wait the more I think it's because they have no intention of going with an OGL like license.

 

[darjr]

Their biggest competitor is successful because they are producing D&D. Typically in the past there was only one company doing that. The OGL allows more.

Yes, and nothing about 5e will change that. Not even if it's OGL. But that competitor being OGL is a big plus in the competitions corner. 5e not being OGL will do nothing but hamper it in the marketplace.

How much? Maybe not enough to make a difference, but I doubt it.

 

[Iosue]

First of all I said 'in no small part', I do not think that the OGL is the ONLY secret to their success, not even a little bit.

That still doesn't answer the question. How does going OGL contribute to success in ways that a liberal GSL does not?

 

[jadrax]

Is there anything in the play-test packets so far that is not replicable under the current OGL anyway?

 

[darjr]

That still doesn't answer the question. How does going OGL contribute to success in ways that a liberal GSL does not?

I didn't know that was the question. A liberal GSL isn't as open as an OGL and will be viewed as a lesser license. It will fail in a head to head competition, imho.

I think the lack of an announcement either way hurts 5e. My hope is that there is either a very liberal GSL or an OGL and they are just hashing out the details and waiting for 5e to be released or close to release before announcing.

I see that there are folks like Chris Pramas play testing 5e, I have this unfounded hope that it's in part because he knows something good about the eventual license.