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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6114982" data-attributes="member: 58197">It's an interesting question. Mike Mearls and company would probably like to go fully OGL, but I expect the Hasbro brass (to the extent that it knows or cares about D&D) is dead set against it. It's pretty easy to draw a direct line from the OGL to Pathfinder eating WotC's lunch. You can argue that if Wizards hadn't tried to abandon the OGL with 4E, Pathfinder never would have happened, and I'd agree. But if there had been no OGL in the first place, Pathfinder also would not have happened.As Grydan says, it's easy to make a case for not trying to get off the tiger. It's much harder to convince someone who's gotten off to get back on. If I were a Hasbro suit, I'd be asking, "Let's say we go open like you want, and 5E takes off big. Sometime down the road we're going to want to make 6E. What assurance can you give me that some upstart won't create a 5E-Pathfinder and split our customer base down the middle again?"There are counter-arguments to be made against that, but they rely to an uncomfortable degree on nebulous theories about network externalities, community goodwill, and such-like. Those theories will be a tough sell to a suspicious Hasbro executive whose primary concern is to avoid looking bad in front of the CEO. The executive's thinking is apt to be, "If I keep tight hold of the IP and 5E tanks, I can point to the history of 4E and say D&D was beyond saving. We'll mothball the brand and revisit it ten years from now. But if I take 5E open and we have another Pathfinder debacle, I'm history."My guess: The 5E license will be designed to make it safe and easy for 3PPs to write 5E adventures and supplements, with an eye toward fostering a vibrant third-party community. Not only will that strengthen the game, it will also allow D&D to continue with minimal active support from Wizards, so they can keep a modest revenue stream from the core books even if Hasbro mothballs the brand. However, those core books will remain closed. You will not be allowed to reprint the 5E Player's Handbook minus a few spell names. That will be the price of getting the suits on board.</blockquote>

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