d20 bubble bust?- High Prices, too many books

[Tav_Behemoth]

That's not the only nice treatment of OGL material Mr. Peterson managed. In his second world book he also points out what came from where, making tracking sources convenient. The only document that is more convenient is ToH, in which each creature is its own document.

Very cool! I was aware of the excellent historical citations in Tome of Horrors, but The Second World Campaign Sourcebook is the first use of contemporary citations I've heard of.

Both Misters Peterson - Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games and his collaborators on the ToH, and Steven Palmer Peterson of Second World - deserve recognition as pioneers.

 

[Bards R Us]

Wow. This sort of thing was true for the one group of semi- and non-gamers I ran an early 3e game for, but my current groups (all lifers) are, much like me, pretty much whores for gaming product. Granted, I'm now trying to figure out what titles I can bear to part with in order to make room for more stuff...

I guess I'm one of the exceptions.

Well in some of the groups I've been in so far, I would say roughly half of all players had at least a PHB. And some of those players often had alot more than just that. Like me

 

[woodelf]

Of course, WOTC could sue Holistic for borrowing bits of the Star Wars RPG (which wasn't released under the OGL, period) for Fading Suns.

Unless, of course, what they used from the Star Wars RPG was too short to be copyrightable, an idea rather than an expression, ineligible for patent protection because it's a game rule, ineligible for patent or copyright because it's an expression of a discovered truth rather than a creative expression (like a math formula); or the use Holistic put it to could be considered sufficiently transformative to be an original work, or in some other way qualify as Fair Use; or what WotC is calling a derivative work isn't in the eyes of the law, and rules-compatible works are completely free and clear and unrestricted and you don't need the WotC OGL to do them in the first place.

Having not read Fading Suns D20 (i've got a pretty significant selection of the real version), i can't say that any of these possibilities do or don't apply. But any of them *could* apply--the legal IP status of RPGs is very much undecided. So simply saying that any similarity between two RPGs must, in the absence of specific permission, involve plagiarism or illegal derivation may or may not be correct.

 

[woodelf]

For my group, we overall have bought less. We tend to buy in spurts now. Wait for a few books to come out and then go and buy them as opposed to picking up lots of books.

I'm just *starting* to buy more [D20 System]. There wasn't a single D20 System thing that i thought was worth the cost for the first ~2.5yrs (though i came --><--this close to buying Nyambe several times, and if i'd had money to spare i probably would've). While i liked lots of stuff (M&MM, Spycraft, Nyambe, some others), Arcana Unearthed and Dynasties & Demagogues were the first books (at roughly the same time) that finally got me to buy a D20 System product. I've bought a couple more since then, and see several on the horizon that i'm really looking forward to (Blue Rose, for starters).

I also agree that there was a certain amount of enthusism when 3.0 first hit. At more books come out, the realization that those books may never get used, especially when the engine has been tweaked, has cooled a lot of buying habbits. This is especially tough on backlist products that came out when 3.5 did that still used the 3.0 tools like Atlas' huge Bestiary. I've got friends that state, "When they come out with an online update, I'll buy it." Same for Tome of Horrors I"

The 3.5 updates are a rock and a hard place for many of my friends who either want a 3.5 book, or want the updates to be available for the 3.0 book online before they buy.

The differences just aren't that big! Just use the "3E" book in your game, ferkrisakes. [/rant]

 

[woodelf]

My entire group except me. They refuse to DM because "it's too much work".

I hear that a lot from D20 System-only groups. Among my circle of RPing friends, i know of at least two groups where there is only one person willing to run D20 System, but all of them will GM any number of other games. Strangely, these same people who are willing to run other systems are often not willing to play them. It's weird. Among all the RPers i know personally, those who're willing to GM complex systems like D20 System are pretty few, while those who're willing to GM in general are pretty common--most are willing to, but many aren't particularly interested in it. They don't do so not because of aversion, but because of apathy.

Anyway, trying to be constructive here, not partisan: One's first GMing experience should be as simple as possible. That means, IMHO, minimize the rules, so that the novice GM only needs to worry about the GMing itself, not rules. Then, once she is comfortable with GMing in general, she can "graduate" to a high-complexity system like D20 System.

 

[woodelf]

That's not the only nice treatment of OGL material Mr. Peterson managed. In his second world book he also points out what came from where, making tracking sources convenient. The only document that is more convenient is ToH, in which each creature is its own document.

How'd he do that? Did he simply luck out and only derive from sources whose titles weren't PIed? Or get specific permission from all his sources? Or some other clever trick?

 

[woodelf]

Has anyone ever thought of putting the imprint of someone's favorable review on the higher quality products? Lots of other products (look in a grocery store, for example) have endorsements as a "Real" dairy product, for example, to give consumers information from a fairly independent third party. Kosher goods get a special symbol to show that the facilities are periodically inspected by rabbis. Books are NY times bestsellers, or might win a Booker or a Newbury Prize.

I think the d20 market would function a lot more efficiently if a couple of "rating" organizations began allowing publishers to say what awards they have won with their review copies of the material. Example: The Eric Noah five star award. Eric picks ten reviewers who get advance copies sent to them by the game companies. Each reviewer forwards his top two choices to Eric, who has final choice. Consumers will gravitate toward the products that have the awards, especially the products with multiple awards.

But to pull that off, we'd have to build in that step to the whole process--there'd have to *be* advance copies to give to reviewers. And we'd have to somehow get good, professional reviewers--who'd probably need to make their living at reviewing, so that they could afford the time to keep up.

Also, most (though not all) of the blurbs you read on the covers of books, and pretty much all of the awards, are there because you're looking at a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or later printing--often the initial release has much less hype, and from far less prestigious sources, because the book hasn't been out there long enough to get the awards, etc. So long as some combination of consumers, retailers, and distributors keep pushing the RPG industry ever more towards new release and away from backlist, there just aren't going to be 2nd printings of most things. And by the time they win an Origins or Ennie, or whatever, they've often mostly sold through (especially for D20 System supplements), so even stickers aren't that great of an option. Mind you, i *love* the idea of accolades filtering the books a bit, i'm just not sure how it'd happen.

Imprints, as someone else observed, are probably more plausible. A publisher needs to simply be very selective about what they printe under a given imprint, and the imprint becomes a mark of quality. This can be the game company's name, but it can also be a label they use just for their "ultra-quality" line. Atlas, Green Ronin, Sword & Sorcery Studios, and Fantasy Flight Games are all, apparently, starting to get that way--they've come up several times in this thread, and in other threads on D20 System products/publishers, as "must check out" publishers. For me, personally, Atlas has managed the one step better: "must get" publisher--if they print it, and it's on a topic i'm interested in, i know it'll be good. Sometimes even if it's on a topic i'm not interested in (or at least thought i wasn't). I just "know" that if Atlas publishes it, it's good. What we need are more imprints like that.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

or what WotC is calling a derivative work isn't in the eyes of the law, and rules-compatible works are completely free and clear and unrestricted and you don't need the WotC OGL to do them in the first place.

Obviously, I don't work for Holistic, and I've heard nothing from anyone about this particular topic, but to me that sounds like the most likely reason. Of course, I'm not a lawyer...

 

[James Heard]

I think one of the interesting ideas I've had for the pdf market still hasn't come to pass yet as far as I know. Since the PDF market has so many 'bit players' you'd think that someone would start 'anthologizing' the stuff and collecting pdfs (probably at a loss comparatively, but hey you'd be getting a cut and getting seen) into bundles. You'd still want to keep the things priced relative to other pdf products, but there you'd have an entry product that people could use as a sort of editorial (yes, you'd want a "Psion says:" sort of review before each product. It's worked for decades in the science fiction paperback market, and the market crossover has GOT to be high so you wouldn't have to do much. I think the main barrier would be convincing people to buy into the anthology 'theme', taking the hit in margins as marketing, and maybe coercing a bit of 'it's all the same" feel onto what are probably much different products. And if THOSE things sold well enough then maybe you might work on getting the individual hobby publishers together for a product, even perhaps a print product. It just seems like it would work. IS there such an animal out there and I've missed it?

 

[Psion]

How'd he do that? Did he simply luck out and only derive from sources whose titles weren't PIed? Or get specific permission from all his sources? Or some other clever trick?

Right after his section 15, he has a sidebar to the effect of "[insert feat name] comes from the second source, [insert mechanics] come from the third source", etc.