Do you think the OGL was a good idea?

[delericho]

no... I do not think so. with no OGL PF wouldn't exsist at all.

Actually, I'm not sure that's true. When the Dragon license ended, Paizo had to do something - it was that or fold the company. And with the d20 license also ending, any option of continuing to support D&D was also a no-no. So, although Pathfinder wouldn't exist in it's current form, it's likely they'd have produced something.

And it would have been a success. Paizo had two enormous advantages over everyone else in the market (WotC excluded) - access to the database of ~50k Dragon subscribers, and huge goodwill built up from their 5 years of running the magazines. This wasn't just some random startup; it was a company that many of their customers wanted to succeed.

The big question, of course, is how much of a success. After all, 'success' in the field of RPGs means selling a few thousand copies of your core rulebook and then maybe a few supplements. So, would our non-OGL Pathfinder have been a success on a par with DCC? With Shadowrun? Or, indeed, would it still have supplanted D&D 4e as the #1 RPG? (It's highly likely it wouldn't have been as huge as it is now, but then WotC made enough other mistakes with 4e that their success is really not assured even without the OGL-Pathfinder out there.)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Which would void the point of the OGL. No company anywhere is going to invest in a product that could be pulled from under them at any time with no warning.

wait... so 13 months after final relase is no warning!?!?! wouldn't the last supliment have to be figured out most likely within a few days if not months before... even if it took a month that is still a years warning...

I mean if you tell me a company with a year of lead time can't change what it is doing?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Actually, I'm not sure that's true. When the Dragon license ended, Paizo had to do something - it was that or fold the company. And with the d20 license also ending, any option of continuing to support D&D was also a no-no. So, although Pathfinder wouldn't exist in it's current form, it's likely they'd have produced something.

Pathfinder as it exsists now was a major boon to them because it was low overhead (no need to actually make there own system... heck they just pretty much house ruled a 9 year old game) and a fan base of very vocal people that at the time were swearing to never change the system...

Piazo may have made a game call pathfinder, heck I might have even liked it more... but it would not be pathfinder

 

[Morrus]

heck they just pretty much house ruled a 9 year old game

You know, it is true that Pathfinder was based on 3.5. However, there are ways of phrasing that. "they just pretty much house ruled a 9 year old game" is probably the most insulting to Jason Bulmahn you could have come up with, and is absolutely loaded with diminishment of his work. Pathfinder is an extensive rewrite of the game. Take a look at the Pathfinder core rulebook. It's not a printout of the 3.5 SRD; it's 500+ pages, every word of which was written by Paizo. The amount of work involved in the rewrite of the system deserves much more respect than a derisory label of "house rules".

 

[Nellisir]

wait... so 13 months after final relase is no warning!?!?! wouldn't the last supliment have to be figured out most likely within a few days if not months before... even if it took a month that is still a years warning...
I mean if you tell me a company with a year of lead time can't change what it is doing?

A company spends a decade developing their catalog and product lines, and you want them to just throw it away? It doesn't matter how much lead time they have, it's a terrible business plan. Any projects they have planned in the next year they'll need to scrap: they won't be able to sell it after a year so everything will go on firesale, and what's the point of putting out something you can only sell for six months, or two month, or one month? You won't even pay the writers, let alone printers and shippers and storage costs.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You know, it is true that Pathfinder was based on 3.5. However, there are ways of phrasing that. "they just pretty much house ruled a 9 year old game" is probably the most insulting to Jason Bulmahn you could have come up with, and is absolutely loaded with diminishment of his work. Pathfinder is an extensive rewrite of the game. Take a look at the Pathfinder core rulebook. It's not a printout of the 3.5 SRD; it's 500+ pages, every word of which was written by Paizo. The amount of work involved in the rewrite of the system deserves much more respect than a derisory label of "house rules".

Not to mention an extensive public playtest process that seemed to go so well that WotC aped it themselves a few years later.

Pretty sure they invested at least as much in developing PF as WotC did in developing 4e.

 

[Morrus]

Not to mention an extensive public playtest process that seemed to go so well that WotC aped it themselves a few years later.

Well, to be fair, I imagine both companies were using the precedent set by the computer games industry which has been using pubic beta builds for years. Though Paizo was probably first major tabletop RPG company to do so (I could be wrong).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well, to be fair, I imagine both companies were using the precedent set by the computer games industry which has been using pubic beta builds for years. Though Paizo was probably first major tabletop RPG company to do so (I could be wrong).

Totally. Just another log for the "PF isn't just a repackaged 3.5e" fire.

 

[delericho]

Pathfinder as it exsists now was a major boon to them because it was low overhead

Yes, the OGl was a massive boon to Paizo. But in the absence of the OGL they would still have had to do something.

and a fan base of very vocal people that at the time were swearing to never change the system...

In the scenario under discussion, those people would have had no choice - they could either go with WotC and be forced to change the system, or go with Paizo and be forced to change the system. The difference being that those people were already very angry at WotC for enforcing that system change and for 'betraying' Paizo by pulling the license. (The fact that that anger was unjustified makes no difference - the anger was real nonetheless.)

Had Paizo gone with an entirely new system (and even moreso if they'd been forced to go with an entirely new system) they would have carried a significant number of people with them. Not as many as they in fact did, but even 1% of that ~50k subscriber base is more sales than most RPG products manage ever.

Paizo may have made a game call pathfinder, heck I might have even liked it more... but it would not be pathfinder

Yes, but you said "with no OGL PF wouldn't exsist at all" (emphasis mine). Existing in a different form is not the same as not existing at all.

 

[kettite]

From the hobbiest perspective, I think the OGL has been a great boon. The active participation of fans in the creation of new material which can be shared hobby-wide, especially taking advantage of the distribution potential of the internet, is pretty astounding. In that regard, the OGL is visionary (or as has been mentioned, a very smart cross-grab of an idea that had existed in computer programming).

From the corporate perspective, I cannot for the life of me fathom how WotC's in-house counsel was convinced that this was a good idea. I'd love to see the back and forth e-mails from the legal/intellectual property rights perspective of things. Were I in the position of general counsel for WotC and someone had approached me during the development of 3E with the concept of the OGL, I'd have thrown up countless road-blocks because you were essentially giving away your toy for free... forever.

Not being well versed in IP (and certainly not as it relates to the games industry) I may be missing the arguments in favor because of my knee-jerk reaction. If anyone can educate me, I'd be grateful (though I can't imagine the minutiae of this interests anybody else here, this being a gaming and not corporate law forum).