Are we fair to WotC?

[Wicht]

The former appears to license several other systems. The latter looks to be only Pathfinder and FATE which, I believe, are OGL, so that's one at least.

Urm, that's two actually. Owen does full time freelancing, but the bulk of his work for the past few years has been with Pathfinder material.

And, if we are going to be that particular, Rite's diceless game uses the Amber system which is not OGL.

 

[Wicht]

double post

 

[Wicht]

It's fine to note Pathfinder is still in its 1st edition, but it was released in 2009. 4e was released in 2008, and we don't have 5e D&D yet. Will Pathfinder never have a new edition? Will Pathfinder 1e last longer than 4E D&D? 3e was released in 2000, and lasted 3 years without revision (the Pathfinder rules have had minor fixes, but not to the 3e/3.5 level, IMO) and 8 to the next edition., so Pathfinder 2nd Ed needs to be later than 2017 to match that!

To be honest, I expect a Pathfinder 2e eventually (I would guess 2015-2016), but I also suspect it will be more or less the same game; that is, an actual new edition fully compatible with the first in much the same way 3.5 was compatible with 3.0, if not more so. But such an edition change, to repeat myself, is not akin to a reinvention and is a different model than the edition changes of WotC. Call of Cthulhu has gone through several editions but the changes have always been, to my knowledge, fairly minor.

 

[Wicht]

To me, 2e-3e was not much bigger of a deal than 3.0-3.5. Very intuitive, very easy to learn, played the same way. A few details and idiosyncrasies lost, a lot of clarity and consistency gained. I'm not sure on what level it was a different game.

Same here - that was a seamless and enthusiastic change for me. Never looked back, really.

 

[tomBitonti]

Have to ask, what does it mean to treat a company (such as Hasbro/WotC) unfairly?

As a forum for discussion for RPGs and other games, we can ask whether "we" EnWorld posters, as a whole, have given Hasbro/WotC 'good press' or 'fair appraisals'.

That's a bit tough, though, in that the many individual posters posts, which have a mix of opinion and reasoning, can't be said to add up to a "we" as a tangible group. Or perhaps rather, the boards are informal, and are a welcome place for "reasonable" opinions. Within those opinions, a poster is free to dislike 4E for many reasons, with wider bounds than for many respected newspapers, or for moderated journals.

From the point of view of whether "we" the posters to the ENWorld boards have given the Hasbro/WotC products a fair shake at our purchase $$, that doesn't seem to be a reasonable question. That's hard to say, since each individual poster will have a different pattern of purchases and motivations for or against a purchase. But, I think as far as convincing folks to buy their product, Hasbro/WotC, the producer of the product in question, has the larger share of convincing folks to buy, through a mixture of quality, function, and simple communication.

There is a question, too, of what difference does it make? If the context is the (apparent) failure of 4E, or the (apparent) success of other products, that needs to factor in by whose definition of success or failure, and needs to factor in the question of the actual potential market. And, whether the failure is measured against realistic goals.

That is, to be more specific: 4E has large corporate goals to meet. Perhaps larger than Paizo, perhaps much much larger than Paizo. 4E might be seen as failing because those goals were too high, not because it actually failed by more reasonable measures.

4E might have failed simply because the market simply wasn't there for the product. Maybe, folks have moved to other types of games.

4E might have failed because the initial goals (Online Gaming) were defined unreasonably broadly.

These all might not be real failures, but rather, a failure of expectation. (That may parse oddly, but I'm not sure how to express myself more clearly here.)

Thx!

TomB

 

[Cybit]

I separated out this part of the post because it just screams for attention. To say that you cannot count the leading RPG company and their practices because they use the OGL and therefore are not a good indicator of the usefulness of the OGL seems more than passing strange. Paizo had a choice. They chose the OGL. They did not have to do that. There were at least two other choices open to them at the time. They picked a path and have made a wild success out of it. It is possible, if not probably, that the success is due in some small part as to the nature of the choice they made and the choices they have made since. Paizo has a different model than WotC and it has shown itself to be more successful than the model WotC is using.

As for how much of Pathfinder is OGL, the answer is all of it: every rule, including all the rules and monsters they have published since 2009.

I hate to be the deflater of cheerleaders, but the OGL as written requires Paizo to make the PRD free and accessible. They are not doing that because they want to. They are doing that because they have to.

That said, I do think Paizo's business model of selling maps / accessories is better long term than just books.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I hate to be the deflater of cheerleaders, but the OGL as written requires Paizo to make the PRD free and accessible. They are not doing that because they want to. They are doing that because they have to.

No, they don't. The content that they created themselves (not the core rulebook but everything after) they are free to do with as they wish. We've seen many OGL publishers designate part or all of the new content they write as closed, which the license allows them to do. Making their numerous supplements open was a choice.

 

[Wicht]

I hate to be the deflater of cheerleaders, but the OGL as written requires Paizo to make the PRD free and accessible. They are not doing that because they want to. They are doing that because they have to.

That said, I do think Paizo's business model of selling maps / accessories is better long term than just books.

Even if what you say is true, and its only partly true, the choice to use the OGL is a choice. It was not forced upon them, they took a risk and followed the path of the OGL. Nor is there any indication they use the OGL in a grudging manner. They, as a company, are quite supportive of other companies and is a true proponent of the OGL movement in their actions.

For instance, they promote, actively promote, 3pp books on their website, and in their convention appearances. Part of this has to do with the fact they are also a game store and not just an RPG company. But they do not seem to view other people using their material as competitors in an adverse sense. They are very encouraging to those producing material other than theirs. And I think part of that is because, not only do they have a good business model, but they are, from top to bottom, gamers.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

There are many others much better at talking facts on the evolution of D&D than myself, but the play numbers and purchase numbers are pretty clear:

- Before 3.0, D&D was way bigger than everything else, and mostly everyone played the latest version
- When the OGL was released, a ton of companies tried their versions of stuff based on the OGL, and failed to get much traction and gave up. The basic reason was that the OGL seemed pretty much only good for heroic fantasy, and, if you want that, why not just use D&D?
- When 4e came out, it was significantly different. Roughly, my guess is that about 1/3 of D&D players liked it, 1/3 disliked it and 1/3 just wanted to play some form of well-supported D&D and didn't care.
- Pretty much everyone who played D&D's living campaign -- and especially the organizers -- did not like the way the way the living campaign changed.
- When Pathfinder came out a year after 4e had been released, it drew the attention of those who liked D&D but did not like 4e. They switched to Pathfinder from WotC D&D because they preferred the older style of gaming. In 2009-2010 about a third of D&D players were playing Pathfinder (Gen Con figures support this number)
- There was a steady erosion of the middle third ("some form of well-supported D&D is all I want") of players because by this time both systems were well-supported and clearly had legs.
- This erosion was intensified by WotC being unable to match Pathfinder in the creation of quality adventures. For players who just wanted to run pre-made adventures, Pathfinder is a clearly better experience with many better choices.
- With the end of significant support for 4e in 2012, at least 2/3 of play was Pathfinder (again, going by Gen Con numbers) because it was down to people who wanted to play an unsupported 4e more than they wanted to play a supported 3.5 (Pathfinder).
- Now, with no support for 4e, you have to be a strong committed fan to play it. Any new players or convention-goers are far more likely to join a Pathfinder group. I'd imagine well over 3/4 of D&D players play Pathfinder now.

Note: I'm ignoring the small, but significant number of D&D players who prefer pre-3.0 D&D. That fraction hasn't really changed much over the last 5 years and I doubt it will moving forwards.

At the heart of it, most D&D players want to play a supported system that feels like D&D. 4e was so different that it was more of a barrier for them than the previous change, which is why Pathfinder was successful in picking up traction whereas previous OGL attempts were not. I'd estimate about 1/3 of D&D players at the time they came out were actively looking for an OGL 3rd edition.

OGL was a disaster for WotC (but not for players!) because it failed to get fans to play lots of small variants of D&D while buying WOTC core rule books and it succeeded in allowing another company to do exactly what WOTC used to do. This happened when a significant fraction of WOTC customers was unhappy with the new version. If the OGL had not been made, Pathfinder would not exist and they would instead have 2/3 happy customers, and 1/3 disgruntled customers who stayed with them because they preferred bad supported D&D to unsupported D&D. We are better off for the OGL, but Wizards are not.

Back to the question in the thread? Are we fair to WOTC? They screwed up with the OGL, but that actually is better for fans as it gave them a choice between 4e and 3.5. So we should be grateful they made a bad business decision, not whining at them. On the other hand they do seem to handle transitions very badly. But then transitions between versions are hard (ask Microsoft ...). On the whole I think I feel sorry for them. They made a bad decision, it massively destroyed their market share, and then they haven't worked out how to recover. If I had to fault them, it would be for lack of imagination. Since the OGL fiasco, they have gone for safe and conservative -- let's please everyone and make a minimally offensive product. I don't think that will work for them. They have lost the high ground and need to do something actively cool. In 2010 they could have produced something merely "as good as" Pathfinder and it would have pulled fans back. Now I am not sure that simply being traditional is enough for them. They have ceded the status of owners of the "default game" to Paizo, and 5e will need to be significantly better to win them back.


DISCLAIMER: I'm in the "strongly prefer 4e" crowd, but completely understand why a lot of people prefer older editions. I have not been impressed with 5e mostly because it does not feel like it raises the bar or does anything exciting. I am excited by 13th Age much more for my D&D-playing future. My general feeling is that we have come to the end of the era of default role-playing being owned by one company. WOTC will not recover enough market share and Hasbro will sell them off when it becomes clear they will not grow enough to be worth keeping in the fold. And this will be a good thing.

 

[Warbringer]

Paizo embraced the OGL. Pathfinder is currently (and has been for a while) the leading RPG in the United States. If one is to contend that the OGL spells doom for those that embrace it, they must explain how Paizo manages to make it work so well. My opinion (though I like to think its an informed opinion) is that the OGL model has better sustainability than the "create a new game every few years" model.

As to other game systems using the license than just d20, there is FATE, Fudge, and Traveller to name just three.

Got it. Thanks for answering

Yes, Piazo is obligated to put under OGL any derivative content, but clearly they have decided to embrace more than just the spirit of the law and clearly publish IP under said licence. I'd go even further and say Paizo understands the play for free model better than any publisher (Savage Worlds excepted) out there.

Fate and their Creative Commons license is different, in that it is an OGL, but not the WoTC OGL. I think though they understand the real value of the model, unlike the new masters at WoTC