Brian Lewis, original legal drafter of the OGL, speaks out

[CleverNickName]

Not quite. The 4th Edition GSL did push Paizo into doing what they were already planning on doing, create their own Pathfinder game. And it was a very successful game. However, Pathfinder sales didn't eclipse D&D sales until AFTER 4th Edition stopped publication and WotC wasn't producing ANY D&D content for a while. As soon as they started up with 5th Edition, Pathfinder slipped back down to second place.

It took some digging around, but this is what I was talking about. It's a graph of the top five TTRPGs over the years, from 2004 to 2019. It shows D&D tied with Paizo in 1st place late around late 2010, when D&D Essentials was released. Pathfinder then drops to 2nd place for a few months, before rising to the #1 slot for more than 3 years.

So, yep, that checks out: Wizards of the Coast stopped publishing 4E material in 2010, and Pathfinder rose to #1 immediately thereafter.

Here's the other one I was looking for, also with the Top Five games over the years, but with key events (such as release dates) marked.

It's interesting to look at for a couple of reasons.

One, Pathfinder jumped to 2nd Place immediately as it was released, meaning it already had a huge fan base ready to support it. A fan base at least as large and as active as the previous #2 slot (Warhammer 40K, which was considered at the time to be the "next-best-thing" to playing D&D.) I'd wager that those fans are still there, with plenty of reinforcements...especially if this ENWorld poll is to be believed.

Two, D&D shot up from 6th place all the way to 1st place in just three months after 5E was just announced, allowing it to debut in 2nd place behind Pathfinder. I had been genuinely worried for the D&D brand, and things had been going poorly for them for years-- it was a relief to see so many players and third-party publishers return to D&D after all that time. I wonder how much of that immediate resurrection was due to the less-restrictive OGL, and the influence of third-party publishers? And how much of that was from 4E's fans, rushing to buy up the last of the 4E books before they were gone forever?

Still, your point stands . . . WotC's open license shenanigans during the 4th Edition probably did have a lot to do with making Pathfinder the success it was. And their current shenanigans with the new "OGL" is already pushing publishers to create their own systems and new, truly open, licenses. The situation isn't identical, but history does seem to be repeating itself . . . .

Yup, I agree.

 

[overgeeked]

It took some digging around, but this is what I was talking about. It's a graph of the top five TTRPGs over the years, from 2004 to 2019. It shows D&D tied with Paizo in 1st place late around late 2010, when D&D Essentials was released. Pathfinder then drops to 2nd place for a few months, before rising to the #1 slot for more than 3 years.

So, yep, that checks out: Wizards of the Coast stopped publishing 4E material in 2010, and Pathfinder rose to #1 immediately thereafter.

View attachment 272101


Yup, I agree. Here's the other one I was looking for, also with the Top Five games over the years, but with key events (such as release dates) marked.
View attachment 272102
It's interesting to look at for a couple of reasons.

One, Pathfinder jumped to 2nd Place immediately as it was released, meaning it already had a huge fan base ready to support it. A fan base at least as large and as active as the previous #2 slot (Warhammer 40K, which was considered at the time to be the "next-best-thing" to playing D&D.) I'd wager that those fans are still there, with plenty of reinforcements...especially if this ENWorld poll is to be believed.

Two, D&D shot up from 6th place all the way to 1st place in just three months after 5E was just announced, allowing it to debut in 2nd place behind Pathfinder. I had been genuinely worried for the D&D brand, and things had been going poorly for them for years-- it was a relief to see so many players and third-party publishers return to D&D after all that time. I wonder how much of that immediate resurrection was due to the less-restrictive OGL, and the influence of third-party publishers? And how much of that was people rushing to buy up the last of the 4E books, before they were gone forever?

Also, importantly, I think…it was less crunchy than the leading alternative.

 

[Desdichado]

So what of that? Tastes and personnel can (and do) change, and money talks.

Based on Eric Mona's comments on that Age of Worms stream earlier, it doesn't look like there's been any real change there.

 

[Charlaquin]

Based on Eric Mona's comments on that Age of Worms stream earlier, it doesn't look like there's been any real change there.

Maybe not for Eric Mona, but a lot of the folks working at Paizo now are former 4e writers. I’m sure at least some of them are fine with 4e, and you can see some noticeable 4e influence on PF2’s design.

 

[Michael Linke]

It also means he's not exactly an impartial third party in this dispute. Just something to keep in mind.
I really hope the major 3pp manage to create a strong front against WotC's abuse.

In this case, I don't think it matters. They're not describing a means for Paizo to continue to have unfettered use of the 3.x SRD via OGL 1.0/a, they're describing drafting a new license so that original game systems can continue to operate on the open source model. It doesn't directly benefit Paizo in anyway except in garnering good will.

 

[Umbran]

The last time Hasbro threatened the OGL, Paizo became the #1 selling tabletop RPG company and made a lot of money.
Maybe history is poised to repeat itself?

. However, Pathfinder sales didn't eclipse D&D sales until AFTER 4th Edition stopped publication and WotC wasn't producing ANY D&D content for a while.

Mod Note:
Folks,
We've seen this crop up before in the OGL threads - let us not get into arguments about who sold best, when. It doesn't actually matter here, and tends to become acrimonious.

 

[Yaarel]

Heh. Just so everyone knows. That obscure word "potation", relates to "potion", and means "the act of drinking".

 

[Greg Benage]

Heh. Just so everyone knows. That obscure word "potation", relates to "potion", and means "the act of drinking".

Actually, and surprisingly on-topic:

 

[Desdichado]

Maybe not for Eric Mona, but a lot of the folks working at Paizo now are former 4e writers. I’m sure at least some of them are fine with 4e, and you can see some noticeable 4e influence on PF2’s design.

Eric was specifically talking about the values of Paizo and how much they value open gaming. He also said that they can't be expected to have a coherent response so soon when it impacts their business so deeply, but to expect an announcement soon, and that we'd REALLY hear it.
That's what I'm referring to. I don't expect Paizo to make a side deal.

 

[Charlaquin]

Eric was specifically talking about the values of Paizo and how much they value open gaming. He also said that they can't be expected to have a coherent response so soon when it impacts their business so deeply, but to expect an announcement soon, and that we'd REALLY hear it.
That's what I'm referring to. I don't expect Paizo to make a side deal.

Oh! I totally misunderstood you initially. Yeah, I think you’re spot on here.

 

[Staffan]

I wonder how much of that immediate resurrection was due to the less-restrictive OGL, and the influence of third-party publishers?

Likely none, as 5e wasn't released under the OGL originally. That didn't happen until early 2016 (at the same time as the DM's Guild launched), so a little over a year after the initial release.

As I recall, they did speak about it before that, saying essentially that they were going to publish an SRD but needed some time to figure out exactly how much to open it up.

 

[Greg Benage]

Likely none, as 5e wasn't released under the OGL originally. That didn't happen until early 2016 (at the same time as the DM's Guild launched), so a little over a year after the initial release.

I mean, @RyanD makes an interesting argument that Pathfinder retained customers that otherwise would have been irrevocably (heh) lost during the 4e years, and that could then be reclaimed by Wizards when 5e was released.

 

[Nebulous]

If you could get Paizo and the other major 3pps to agree on a "mere fantasy" framework for a not-d&d srd, and a truly open game licence, that would be huge. It would help mitigate some of the loss of network effects from D&D being cut off.

Yeah, if Paizo and Kobold and another big one worked together, that would be amazing.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Yeah, if Paizo and Kobold and another big one worked together, that would be amazing.

…and EN World Publishing!

 

[bedir than]

Should've said "recently de-defunct," i guess.

unfunct?

 

[Branduil]

This is exactly what I wanted to see happen. We need a new OGL which fixes the flaws of the original, provides a safe harbor, and can't be revoked.

 

[Aldarc]

Even as a 4e player, I heard from others that Pathfinder made good adventures. 4e generally lacked enough high quality adventures.

It would have been easy for Pathfinder to publish some (or all) of its adventures for the 4e gaming engine, make a profit for Paizo, and making 4e more successful.

One of the big problems, IMHO, was that WotC didn't initially know how to design adventures for the styles of games that 4e was good at cultivating. It took awhile for WotC to find its footing with writing adventures for 4e, but a lot of the damage had been done. Ironically, I do think that the 4e design philosophy for adventures would have worked better with "prepare situations, not plots" as per the Alexandrian or OSR sentiments. However, the 2e-3e philosophy of "prepare plots" was still the prevailing Zeitgeist then, particularly with Paizo adventure paths, which carried over in PF1, 5e, and PF2. But those are just my meandering thoughts.

 

[ThorinTeague]

If they are involved they are probably waiting to announce after WotC does something official?

The industry does not seem to be waiting for wizards of the Coast to do something official, rightfully so. Like the guy said, the mere threat of revoking the old licenses is enough. Just look at all the major game companies that have announced drastic course changes in the past week.

 

[amethal]

The folks at Paizo hated 4E. That’s literally why they made Pathfinder.

I wasn't a fan of 4e (although I've come to appreciate it a bit more since those days) but even to me some of their early objections to 4e as a game system seemed to be based on misconceptions. (I don't blame them at all for not liking the GSL that came with it.)

"It won't allow us to tell the kind of stories we want to tell" (or something to that effect), and then the example given was that the BBEG in one of their adventure paths was a Bard, and 4th edition didn't have Bards.

You can nit-pick about that:

Spoiler: Nit-Pick

I don't think you needed any great powers of prediction to realise that Bards, Gnomes and everything else people wanted that wasn't in the first Player's Handbook was going to be in a subsequent splat book.

If the BBEG in your current adventure path is a Bard, then are your seriously going to need a Bard villain in your next one?

What's including a Bard got to do with "stories you can tell?"

but in actual fact the BBEG wasn't a "Bard" anyway. They had Bard levels, because that was the best fit for the sort of character they were aiming for, but lots of stuff that came with it (Bardic knowledge, mastery of numerous musical instruments, proficiency with rapiers etc.) was not actually appropriate, and some of the stuff they wanted to include Bards don't usually get. The BBEG would actually have been easier to do in 4e than in 3.5e, because you could just give them the combat powers you wanted them to have and call it a day.

4e also attracted some criticism for "out-of-combat" stuff being hand-waved, but Paizo's BBEG's regularly do things "off-camera" for which no game mechanics are given (or needed).

 

[Echohawk]

Heh. Just so everyone knows. That obscure word "potation", relates to "potion", and means "the act of drinking".

We've discussed this before, albeit two editions and a pandemic ago...