Charles Ryan on Adventures

[Banshee16]

Whoo, looks like I opened a fair can o' worms here.

Actually, as I said a while ago, I never expect anyone to give away an entire book for free. As has been said, it's stupid for a small company (or large one) to do that. I can agree with that entirely. But, that's not the only option here.

Here's an idea.

Take five or ten d20 publishers - doesn't matter which ones. Each of them types up a five page .rtf document full of rules that they can live with becoming part of the SRD. Doesn't matter from which supplements, so long as it's OGC kosher. Every six months, or a year, they email that .rtf file to Sovelier Sage or the Hypertext SRD and ask those guys to make an addendum to their site. Call it the ((Company Name)) Appendix.

A five page writeup is an evening's work, so it's not like its too onerous. It makes all sorts of people happy, including other publishers who can now use some of those rules in thier own books without reinventing the wheel. Now I can make a D20 Sailing Ships supplement with 25 different ships using the Broadsides!! combat rules easily. Free advertising for Living Imagination (not that they would care too much anymore) and better product for me. And, as an added bonus, I don't have to come up with yet another ship to ship combat ruleset to add to the pile that already exists.

I can appreciate that adding an entire book to the SRD would be a very difficult and time consuming task. I don't think anyone actually wants that though. There's nothing stopping an incremental addition to the SRD that can be done fairly easily. Saying that it can't be done because its too difficult is ignoring that it can be done, but, not everything can be done. I don't think there is a need for everything. Just a showcase of whatever you think is groovy enough to become a game standard.

So......a little like Monte Cook's "Best D20 of 2005" book, or whatever it was called?

Banshee

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, exactly. But, instead of a single publication for the first time since 3.5 was released, how about a steady stream? I don't even mind too much if it was not commonly available to the public. That would be fine. I can see the reasons for not wanting to give stuff away for free. But, I think my idea would be a little easier to do than cranking out an entire book. Just a thought.

One other thought. I've seen a couple of times that a d20 supported SRD would cause publishers to close up their books and stop making them OGC. I really have to ask, "So what?" I'm sorry, but, there has been so little cross pollination between publishers that the books might as well be entirely closed content anyway. As I look at the dozen or so Sword and Sorcery books, three AEG books, 2 Mystic Eye Games books, and a handful of .pdf's, I see pretty much zero content from other publishers within any of those books. Granted, my collection is hardly encompassing, but, you'd think out of two dozen or so publications, I would see at least ONE idea in a book from another publisher. Really, if Mongoose cranked out its next four books entirely closed content, what difference would it make? There's already almost zero cross pollination going on anyway.

 

[Banshee16]

Yeah, exactly. But, instead of a single publication for the first time since 3.5 was released, how about a steady stream? I don't even mind too much if it was not commonly available to the public. That would be fine. I can see the reasons for not wanting to give stuff away for free. But, I think my idea would be a little easier to do than cranking out an entire book. Just a thought.

One other thought. I've seen a couple of times that a d20 supported SRD would cause publishers to close up their books and stop making them OGC. I really have to ask, "So what?" I'm sorry, but, there has been so little cross pollination between publishers that the books might as well be entirely closed content anyway. As I look at the dozen or so Sword and Sorcery books, three AEG books, 2 Mystic Eye Games books, and a handful of .pdf's, I see pretty much zero content from other publishers within any of those books. Granted, my collection is hardly encompassing, but, you'd think out of two dozen or so publications, I would see at least ONE idea in a book from another publisher. Really, if Mongoose cranked out its next four books entirely closed content, what difference would it make? There's already almost zero cross pollination going on anyway.

Monster Manual II has two monsters in it from Sword and Sorcery books.

The Witch's Handbook from Green Ronin features the ritual spellcasting system from Sword and Sorcery's Relics & Rituals I.

The book "Feats" by AEG has feats from numerous other D20 publishers (including AEG) all assembled in one place.

I've seen those ritual rules from Sword and Sorcery used somewhere else as where, though I can't remember what book they were in.

Those are just some examples.

I will admit though, that it's not as often as I'd like. I want to point out, however, that entirely using one company's set of rules on a topic isn't always a good idea. As someone else pointed out, there are like 5 books detailing sailing and naval vessels. However, if you look at them (at least the three I'm familiar with), there's Swashbuckling Adventures, Stormwrack, a Fantasy Flight Games book on the topic, and Corsair/Skull & Bones. Each of those has their own advantages. I like Swashbuckling Adventures for the more "realistic" take. The ships have more hp, there are detailed rules for cannonfire, and they've got a feats system for improving ships. Skull & Bones has better ship to ship combat rules, as well as excellent rules for similating crew satisfaction, etc. Stormwrack has some ship types, and simplified rules for ship combat, as well as a healthy dose of D&D "cheese". Fantasy Flight Games' take on the topic has details on ships of the different races, as well as rules on combat by ship etc. But I don't like it's take on the topic as well as Swashbuckling Adventures or Skull & Bones. So, if you're going to choose one book to use, how do you determine which one to make the "standard"? One person may like the "cheese" of canons that spit lightning, whereas another wants a ship that can throw 410 lbs of iron at another ship with a broadside. Some elements of it though, such as the formatting of ship stats, for example, are something that could be made more consistent. Everyone's got their preference again there. I prefer Swashbuckling Adventures, because in that system a ship has like 1500 hp, whereas in Skull & Bones it's like 200, and I've got problems with imagining a high-level fighter wrecking a warship with a longsword in a few rounds. So how do you choose?

Banshee

 

[Hussar]

Well, I suppose the simple answer would be that an expanded SRD could include rules for the same topic from more than one source. There's no problem with having various alternate rules in the same SRD. I would welcome that actually. Having three versions of the Samurai PrC isn't a bad thing. As I type this, there are several variant rules appearing in the Hypertext SRD. That means that there are two sets of rules (at least) for every variant that appears. Why limit it to 2? Six different rulesets would be fine. Granted, that negates the idea of a game standard, however, it does allow different companies to showcase their work in a comparitive way.

Isn't funny that people talk about how WOTC isn't supporting d20 when, of the three examples named above, one of them is from a WOTC book. But, I think we agree on this point that there should be a heck of a lot more cross-pollination than there is. That right there makes earlier comments about the d20 industry not supporting the ideas behind the OGL somewhat telling.

 

[Yair]

*Actually, this counter-example is even more valid, because it's based on a real example, not on arbitrarily invented numbers and wishful thinking. You seem determined to ignore the Ars Magica example, but it's the only real data we have. It's also a decent seller, and no more a niche game than any other d20 rpg warranting its own core rulebook.

Actually, Ars Magica 5e is significantly more successful than predicted, which to some extent is likely the result of the free pdf thing, but even Atlas doesn't know just how much the free pdf contributed. There is just no way to isolate its effect.
If you want to attribute all the "extra" sales to the free pdf, including the impressive sales of accessories such as True Lineages who sold out a few months after publishing, I believe the ovreall effect of the free pdf was positive for the company. Of course, you can just as validly claim the free pdf had no substantial impact. The data is just not there.

 

[Reynard]

Problem is, that in the absence of these 3rd party companies displaying actual ingenuity, we wouldn't have Midnight or Oathbound, or Hamunaptra, or Black Company, or Iron Kingdoms, or tonnes of other really cool settings or products. WotC has already said they don't want to create settings anymore, because it splits the fan base. And I (and many other players or DMs) don't find the settings they are currently publishing innovative/interesting enough.

We have 2 discussions going on here: what we as gamers might want to see, which may or may not have anything to do with the realities of the publishing business; and what WotC wanted from 3rd party publishers versus what 3rd party publishers actually found to be successful for them. Charles Ryan's comments about quality aside, it is the latter issue that brought up the whole issue in the first place, i think, and the impetus behind WotC jumping back into producing adventures seriously. Ultimately, the point of the 20STL was to sell more PHBs, not to engineer the creation of a thousand 'innovative' (or not) settings. Unfortunately, the d20STL didn't enforce that goal. Too bad for WotC.

I for one like the variety of products I see, but that doesn't mean that I can't see why WotC would want to set about bringing back those customers that have fled to 3rd party OGL type games and publishers. And I think that if WotC really wants to do that, they have the resources and the talent (and the resources to gte the talent) to do just that. i mean, if you are making 3 cents a word writing for Mongoose, and WotC offers you 5, and you have kids and a mortgage and car payments, who are you going to write for?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Id definitely play the game and buy a 15 dollar supplement, if only they'd give me the 50 dollar core book for free

Chuck

Big problem with that is outside of maybe the character sheets, I don't think they actually have any $15.00 supplements. The adventure packs start at $25 and move up from there.

 

[Thomas Percy]

It looks like WotC is not happy with OGL (or what 3rd publishers make with OGL).
They (WotC) can take away OGL when they will put forth 4th edition (or just the same month when they will loose money due to competion rulebooks greater success). It will be end of most of 3rd publishers.
One of the ways of prevent it is to make WotC happy and do what they want (learn to make more money on adventures).
The success of mother-company (WotC) is a success of every 3rd publisher.

And about free, optional, clearly marked as not-official version of SRD with 3rd publishers rules... from a point of view of half-hobby webpage (with nothing to loose) it's a good idea.

 

[Belen]

Big problem with that is outside of maybe the character sheets, I don't think they actually have any $15.00 supplements. The adventure packs start at $25 and move up from there.

Bingo. Really expensive supplements with no cheaper books to support them.

 

[The Shaman]

The success of mother-company (WotC) is a success of every 3rd publisher.

"One publisher to rule them all..."