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

[BASHMAN]

Even if they read and memorized the rules (bring out the eidetic ninja strike force!), they still wouldn't be able to publish books using the 4e rules until the rest of the world without paying for this early license.

Right?

Correction-- they wouldn't be able to publish 4e material that says it is for 4th Ed D&D. Someone using the 3.x OGL could pull an OSRIC and publish an adventure module called the "Fourth Edition Dungeon" that "just happens to be" compatable with 4th ed D&D-- as long as they keep the stat-blocks simple (i.e. instead of statting every zombie, say "three zombies with 4, 8, and 13 hp each") and don't reference the rules (other than the 3.x SRD which will have several things the same) they'll be untouchable.

Heck, a company that really wants to play with fire could publish a product that says "compatable with 4th Edition" -- simply ommiting what it is compatable with the fourth edition of. People aren't going to assume they meant GURPS...

 

[Dausuul]

This is one of the worst arguments in the world, because it rejects any kind of objective metric (like, say, success) in place of a subjective measure (whether I like it or not). So, it allows someone to say that Titanic is crap, despite it outgrossing their favorite art-house film that only six people ever saw, but allows them to defend accusations that their art-house film was crap because "well, sales doesn't equal quality."

IMO, a good way to judge quality is by sales 5 years after release (assuming you're not in a business where new product supersedes old product faster than that).

Marketing hype can produce big sales when a product first comes out. It can do this with crappy products as well as good ones. But if a product keeps on selling after the hype has died down, that's a sign that it can stand on its own merits.

Of course, this isn't much help when you're trying to judge the quality of a product that hasn't come out yet.

 

[Aus_Snow]

But, the Ice and Fire book, I think, depends a lot on 4E. I'm a huge Martin fan, but none of my group is. Unless there are good rules I can steal there for a 4E game or some homebrew game in an Iron Heroes vein, I won't be buying.

Hm. . . that might take some work.

A Song of Ice and Fire (the RPG) won't have levels, classes or even abilities in the usual sense (e.g., Str and Dex.)

To the best of my knowledge, anyway.

 

[Pramas]

Running a hobby game company is a curious thing. Nearly everyone gets into the industry because they love games but at a certain point you have to face the realities of doing business. Now a part of me will always be a D&D fanboy. I started playing when I was 10 years old and it really did change my life. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today if I hadn't cracked open that white boxed set all those years ago. Tapping into that passion is an important part of being an effective game designer, but it takes more than that to run a successful business.

It is tempting to just say, "Wohoo, it's D&D, let's go for it!" That is in fact just what I said back in 2000 when I started Green Ronin. At the time though the company was a side project and the only money I stood to lose was my own. Now I have seven staffers relying on me to make the right decisions for Green Ronin and I don't take that responsibility lightly. I thus have to be a little more sober in my assessment of what's going on and what will be good for GR.

Right now Green Ronin has four important lines: Mutants & Masterminds, Freeport, True20, and the upcoming A Song of Ice and Fire RPG. We could easily keep ourselves busy handling just those four lines and we don't need to rely on any other company to do so. M&M and True20 are stand alone games and they won't be changing because of 4E, A Song of Ice and Fire has its own brand new system and doens't use the OGL, and the new Freeport book is systemless and can be used with any fantasy RPG. So really none of what we're doing at the moment is reliant on what WotC does or doesn't do with the new OGL.

The question we are now wrestling with at GR is what to do with 4E. Should we support it or just keep doing what we're doing? If we do support it, should pay the 5K to become a phase 1 publisher or wait until next year? My blog post took a short look at some of the factors in play. We are giving this serious consideration but we are not ready to finalize plans yet. First we must see the new OGL. I have to know under what terms we'd be doing business before I agree to anything.

There are absolutely some great designers at WotC. Hell, many of them have done work for Green Ronin. Jesse Decker, Chris Thomasson, Rodney Thompson, and Matt Sernett all worked on d20 books for us. I have a lot of respect for 4E's lead designer, Rob Heinsoo, who has been a friend and collegue of mine for over a decade. I know these folks can kick ass, but having worked at WotC for four years I also know that it's an environment that doesn't always get the best out of its designers. I hope 4E is a real step forward, but the question is whether or not I'm willing to bet $5,000 that it is? I don't think it's unreasonable to wish I could see what I was buying before I write a check, though I do understand why WotC is handling things this way.

I'm heartened that so many of you want to see GR keep its place in the d20 world. I hope that we'll be able to and that it'll be a win/win for everyone.

 

[Terramotus]

Hm. . . that might take some work.

A Song of Ice and Fire (the RPG) won't have levels, classes or even abilities in the usual sense (e.g., Str and Dex.)

To the best of my knowledge, anyway.

Huh. I wasn't aware of that. That actually makes it a lot more interesting. If it's its own system I'm tons more likely to buy it. I'm going to go read up on it now.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Huh. That actually makes it a lot more interesting. If it's its own system I'm tons more likely to buy it.

Well, I ain't no authority on it, and I'm not involved or invested in any way, but the last news I read from someone who apparently is, was very clearly along those lines.

So far, it sounds amazingly cool, IMO.

uh, /derail

 

[Aristotle]

I think GR has a solid set of games with fanbases that will likely be large enough to support them at least until they can start putting out 4e products without paying the $5k. Lots of game companies exist without being associated with D&D or the d20 mechanic. You can be in the game industry without being part of the d20 movement. It's the little guys that depend on the d20 market that are getting screwed.

D&D does have a huge amount of brand recognition. "Geeks" on sitcoms play D&D, not Shadowrun or World of Darkness. I have no doubt that it will continue to be a phenomenon. It'll lose some fans. It'll pick up more. D&D is D&D. It's a great thing for a company to be able to tap into the ready-made fanbase.

I didn't read arrogance in the comment regarding the quality of the rules. I did think the comment regarding the glut was a little smug. Maybe it just hurts my feelings as someone who was considering trying to get in on the market this go around, and isn't sure if his ideas will be received as worthy of the market or not. *shrug*

 

[Incenjucar]

I definitely applaud the use of rules-proof products. Those are wonderful for boundless reasons. And creating a new system is also very very good, it's what I'm hoping this little Phase 1/Phase 2 thing produces.

3E created an opportunity for people to become game contributers, 4E's Phase Gap is giving them a reason to move on to being game developers, though I would presume that 4E will still be a great way to make money even after the next White Wolf emerges.

 

[Dire Bare]

::cough::White Wolf, Steve Jackson Games, HERO Games::cough::

And how many of those companies products do you see in mainstream stores, like your local B&N? White Wolf and . . . White Wolf. Even in some FLGS stores I only see WotC and White Wolf products . . . .

 

[Nikchick]

A similar situation happened on Rpgnow.com a few years back. Before GR (or maybe it was WW), etc came over to RPGnow.com, they insisted on "cleaning out the riff-raff" and a lot of smaller publishers were pushed to "the edge" alternate site (I think the lowest-performing half of the publishers, many of which were defunct companies, but others that simply didn't have dazzling cover art or name recognition).

Hey now! GR did no such thing and I'd really appreciate it if no one starts running around saying we did!

Green Ronin has been a longtime supporter of RPGnow. We sold our PDFs there, exclusively, before we ever had our own PDF delivery on our website and we remained there exclusively even when other PDF delivery outfits tried to lure us away. We made no demands on anyone about anything, except when specifically ASKED for our opinions by RPGnow reps. (Our opinion on the RPGNow DriveThruRPG merger was not solicited. We were informed when that was a done deal.)