D&D 4E Green Ronin's Pramas blogs on 4e or not 4e

[TerraDave]

Mr. Pramas remains undecided, from his blog:

To 4E or Not to 4E

After the announcement of Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons back at GenCon, I wrote in my blog about what would need to happen for this to really benefit Green Ronin. Today WotC announced the new terms of the Open Game License and how publishing would work under it. I was part of a conference call yesterday with nine other companies in which WotC gave us the skinny, so I've at least had a day to chew over the news. Back in September I said six things would need to happen for 4E to work for us. Let's take a look at these again in light of the new info.

1) The new rules need to be good.

Jury is still out on this. More to the point, I can't find out if they are good any time soon unless I'm willing to shell out $5,000 to get early access. That's a big leap of faith.

2) WotC needs to convince the lion’s share of their fanbase to make the switch.

The marketing of 4E has not been stellar to date. This is still an open question.

3) The new rules need to be more successful at recruiting new roleplayers.

This remains unknown.

4) The d20 brand needs a new iteration that sheds the bad connotations the original took on.

We now know the d20 logo is dead. There will now only be the Open Game License, but it is going to include the type of strictures that previous only appeared in the d20 System Trademark License. The new OGL apparently will allow the use of some kind of compatibility language that includes a variant of the D&D logo. This may remove some of the onus of the d20 logo, but it is going to make it harder to solicit books to retailers and distributors.

5) WotC needs to get us the new rules in time to learn them well enough to design good product and to make strategic plans that can capitalize on the game’s launch.

If you are willing to pay $5,000 up front, this can happen for the hobby market at least. It doesn't help the book trade business of companies like GR and Paizo, since we needed to get info on our summer releases out this past October. One hopes that six months of lead time is enough to learn the rules and design for them, but without seeing the rules it is still hard to say.

6) WotC needs to do something to prevent a second d20 glut.

They have done something but perhaps not enough. The six months of exclusive time for those that pay for the Designer's Kit will prevent a huge rush of stuff from small companies. This plan does nothing to prevent well funded and established companies from flooding the market with junk though and that was just as much of a problem in the original d20 market.

Naturally, people want to know what Green Ronin's plans are for 4E. All I can tell you right now is that we are still debating internally. When WotC gets us the new OGL, we have to review it and see what we can and cannot do under it. So while I was hoping that this news would make our decision easier, our path is not yet clear. It may be that the smart play is just to put all our muscle behind a A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplay and push that like mofos. We'll see.

 

[Darrin Drader]

One of the things I love about Chris Pramas is that you don't get a bunch of doubletalk and corporatespeak out of him. Based on this statement, I get the impression that he agrees with the view that 4E is too much of an unknown right now in many areas, but things aren't all smelling like roses.

Personally, I think GR should keep going with True20 while secretly developing a new Open Source RPG that will change the face of the market. I think they're the perfect example of "The Little Company That Could" and will likely have a bona fide hit on their hands very soon.

 

[Festivus]

Personally, it isn't like I am going to buy 4E and third party books *and* start playing the next day. I too would have to learn the system, play some smaller adventures with the core rules before I spent any additional money on third party 4E splatbooks and adventures.

I have the 4E core books on order, along with the one adventure. I also have a stable of 3.5 adventures to keep me and my players busy for quite some time. I had planned on playing the RPGA games as a way of learning while doing with the new system without having to also write/read adventures, possibly branching into running them when I wanted to start trying my hand at adjudicating 4E.

I probably wouldn't be ready for 3rd party material until Jan 2009 anyhow, and would blow my Christmas money on 4E books around that same time. I still have Christmas money in my wallet from 12/25/2007 waiting to be spent, might not spend that money till then too.

All of the above assumes I actually like 4E and WoTC not being draconian about what third party publishers can produce (e.g. Tome of Horrors 4E would be a no brainer, settings like Freeport in 4E would be nice too if permitted).

 

[Desdichado]

I kinda agree with Whisperfoot, or at least the first half of his post. GR already has a pretty good thing going with their system neutral Freeport line, True20, MM and the new Fire & Ice Song license. If I were them, I'd tell Rouse and Co. thanks but no thanks; we'll wait for the free version of the rules and then make 4e compatible material. Six months is unlikely to give them anything they don't already have in terms of market positioning. It's a bit of a bummer letting the d20 market go for a few months and focusing on other stuff, especially for the company that had the first d20 module printed, but I think he makes a pretty good point about the risks being worth more than $5000.

But then again, I'm too risk averse to be in business for myself writing RPG material, so maybe my advice isn't something he should care about. And come to think of it, it'd probably be pretty easy to make back $5000 in the early days when only a handful of people will be putting out product. The bigger risk is that 4e isn't the direction they want to end up going and they hurt their brand and/or image by putting some 4e material out that doesn't deliver what folks expect because they didn't have time to really understand the system or whatever.

Seems like the risk of that would be small, though, and in the meantime they can make a short-term wad of cash by being one of the few with product out early. There's always time to decide it 4e isn't for them or not later.

 

[Cadfan]

I don't know how WOTC can possibly prevent "another d20 glut." Short of refusing to provide an OGL at all, I don't know what they can do.

If anyone can publish, then anyone can publish as much as they want.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, a 4E Freeport Companion will come eventually. It wouldn't be the end of the world if it was in January 2009, but it'd be nice to have it sooner.

 

[JohnSnow]

I loved Green Ronin's releases over the last several years. I own copies of Black Company, Thieves World, True 20, Mutants & Masterminds 2e, lots of Freeport stuff, and, of course, True Sorcery (which I did some free editing for).

I'd love to see them support 4e because I'd hate to see them become the "also-ran" of the RPG business. True 20 and Mutants & Masterminds may have some vocal fans, but they ain't Dungeons & Dragons.

The most worrying thing to me is Chris's questioning whether "the new rules (will) be good." That smacks of supreme arrogance. Obviously, Chris thinks his team will make good games, or they wouldn't be in the business in the first place. So clearly, if he actually means this, he thinks his guys are better at it than the ones that work at WotC. Frankly, if I was one of the WotC guys, I'd be really insulted.

From my perspective, it seems that Green Ronin is just miffed because their two most successful products (Mutants & Masterminds and True 20) won't be able to be updated to be compatible with 4e, since the new license doesn't allow "stand-alone games."

But hey, if Green Ronin wants to marginalize itself out of the D&D market, that's their call.

 

[TerraDave]

For Green Ronin, the easiest strategy may be taken the license and doing something like Freeport 4th ed that they know will sale and allow them to more then make their money back.

Then again, if thats it, maybe it isn't worth the hastle.

 

[TerraDave]

John Snow: "Supreme arrogance" is a bit strong. WotC has certainly released other products where the rules weren't good. And while it would seem that the amount of resources being put into 4th ed would ensure good rules, things like rationalization of personal prefrence, group-think, and just getting off on the wrong track could lead to so-so rules.

Big companies put out products that flop all the time. WotC could do the same.

 

[am181d]

The most worrying thing to me is Chris's questioning whether "the new rules (will) be good." That smacks of supreme arrogance. Obviously, Chris thinks his team will make good games, or they wouldn't be in the business in the first place. So clearly, if he actually means this, he thinks his guys are better at it than the ones that work at WotC. Frankly, if I was one of the WotC guys, I'd be really insulted.

I don't think anyone at WotC would be insulted to hear that Chris likes his guys best. I'd be scratching my head if it were the other way around. "Fourth Edition is so great that I don't know if my team is up to the task of supporting it!"

One bit of confusion based on Chris' post above though: Hasn't WotC said that they'll let Phase 1 folks read the rules before committing the $5,000. In other words, sign the NDA, read the rules, and if they stink we won't hold you to the whole $5,000 thing?