WotC Hasbro CEO Chris Cox talks about D&D on NPRs Here & Now. Topics include Layoffs and OGL.

[Charlaquin]

4e killed the OGL. It legal GSL contract was draconian. 4e destroyed itself because it lacked the OGL.

Paizo BECAME competitive because Paizo honors the OGL − and 4e didnt.

I love 4e. But at its origin, when 4e was coming out, I knew − and said repeatedly on the then Wizards forums − that the lack of OGL would self-destroy 4e. Sometimes I hate to be right.


If 4e respected the OGL. Indy publishers would have created content to fill in the gaps that some customers felt were missing.

With a 4e OGL, PAIZO would also be making 4e content. Pathfinder might never have happened, or have been modest in scale. 4e would have flourished.

Instead the attempt to control IP, caused 4e to wither to death.

Amusingly, I remember there being a lot of anti-OGL sentiment on the pro-4e side of the edition war at the time - the idea being if it hadn’t been for the shortsightedness of the OGL’s creators, something like Pathfinder couldn’t have happened, and there would be no edition war, that the GSL was a “fixed” version offering most of the benefits of the OGL without the risk of creating a new rift in the fan base if and when a 5e eventually came out. We were, of course, quite naive to think that, but I definitely remember that line of thinking being around at the time.

 

[Yaarel]

In the long term, no amount of 3PP would have made a difference for me when it came to 4E unless it was almost an entirely different game. I doubt it would have made any difference to the people I played with either.

4.5 Essentials did try to evolve the 4e system. (4e is the first balanced D&D edition, but initially the 4.0 advancement table was inflexible, and difficult to design options for.) But by then, it already lost its allies and customers. It was too late. WotC never ended its draconian GSL. To this day, 4e lacks OGL (and CC).

5e learned from its earlier error, and made sure to inaugurate 5e with an OGL. It is a vital ingredient in the success of 5e. (Asking what fans want via extensive playtest with surveys is also a vital factor.)

Of course, 5e 2024 tried to kill the OGL yet again. But fortunately the D&D community reacted swiftly with much organization. Now the CC is irreversible.

 

[darjr]

The OGL issue isn’t “over”. It’s a permanent feature of the hobby now, the 5e SRD in CC memorializes it.

The OGL, as a useful tool, and any kind of community, is pretty much dead.

 

[Dire Bare]

The OGL, as a useful tool, and any kind of community, is pretty much dead.

Eh . . . IMO, rather than the OGL, or rather "open gaming" community being over, I see it more as being expanded.

We still have games that use the OGL and are based on the 3.5E SRD or 5E SRD. We have other games and systems that use the OGL still. And now, we also have the new ORC license, and the D&D 5E SRD released into CC.

WotC tried to kill the OGL . . . or significantly change it . . . but failed. It is unlikely they will try again, as there is little point in doing so with the 5E SRD released to CC. The OGL is a less-than-perfect license, but now (paradoxically) a rather safe one. Still, the only reason left to use it is if your game is based on D&D 3E.

To me . . . it was never about the license itself, but rather the concept of "open gaming", being able to create content for existing games without the need to negotiate a unique license, product by product. You can still do that, in spades! You even have more options now! The community is stronger and more vibrant than ever!

 

[LordEntrails]

I thought this part was well said and interesting:

“We take a very big tent approach to how we manage the brands and how we think about our fandom. At the end of the day, we try to think about things not just around who's posting online or who's posting videos associated with the brands, but also who's just playing them around kitchen tables or in game stores around the world.

“I think social media is wonderful. It's a very powerful marketing vehicle for us. It's a great way for us to connect with our fans and connect with influencers. But you also have to take a really broad sampling of players’ opinions. If you look at the net satisfaction or any kind of loyalty or satisfaction ratings, they generally are up.

I make it out as a statement that vocal online folks are often a poor representative of the wider customer base. i.e. 'yeah, we hear the online protesters, but they don't really represent a large portion of our customers.' And I think he's right.

Not only is it easy to be an online complainer, given the algorithms and click-bait issues, it is often profitable. IMO, that's a bad thing for our hobby.

 

[TheSword]

I think it's a mix. Yes, Pathfinder grew out of a set of house rules for improving 3.5e and that could rely on the OGL and dovetail well with their Pathfinder Adventure Path line of products (already steaming away with 3.5e material). But yes, Paizo was in a bind because of the lack of a viable 4e license and had to make a choice - either go with Pathfinder or go an indefinite period of time without a 4e-compatible product, dependent once again on a WotC license (having been burned twice so far).
They laid out their dilemma and sought the advice of participants on message boards and, despite predictions they'd come into the 4e fold, they went with PF and have had a very good run of things. Had 4e relied on OGL, that factor wouldn't have been the issue it was for Paizo. They could have had 4e-compatible materials at launch and not been in license limbo. I think that would have made the decision to go with Pathfinder a LOT harder. As it was, WotC's license fickleness only made it easier for 3PP to stick with the OGL - not just Paizo, but also Necromancer Games and Green Ronin.

My memory may be fuzzy but didn’t WotC withdraw Paizo’s license to publish the magazines long long before 4e was released end of 2006 I think for the PDF’s and 2007 for the print. The 4e game system license was released mid 2008 wasn’t it? Let’s assume rumours were flying around before that and that Paizo got advanced warning.

Rise of the Runelords was released in August 2007. The pathfinder playtest was released March 2008 (so was obviously worked on much earlier. A lot of those threads you talked about came after when folks wanted Paizo to switch to 4e. A much harder proposition once they had started their own stuff.

I’m not saying advance warning about a future 4e license didn’t factor in. I do think it’s far too strong to say it was the 4e licence that did it, rather than the very existence of 4e and online tools replacing the magazines and what was clearly a very controversial release.

 

[billd91]

My memory may be fuzzy but didn’t WotC withdraw Paizo’s license to publish the magazines long long before 4e was released end of 2006 I think for the PDF’s and 2007 for the print. The 4e game system license was released mid 2008 wasn’t it? Let’s assume rumours were flying around before that and that Paizo got advanced warning.

Rise of the Runelords was released in August 2007. The pathfinder playtest was released March 2008 (so was obviously worked on much earlier. A lot of those threads you talked about came after when folks wanted Paizo to switch to 4e. A much harder proposition once they had started their own stuff.

I’m not saying advance warning about a future 4e license didn’t factor in. I do think it’s far too strong to say it was the 4e licence that did it, rather than the very existence of 4e and online tools replacing the magazines and what was clearly a very controversial release.

Yes, WotC ended the magazine license in 2007 (with plenty of advance notice), but keep in mind that the reason Paizo was started was to take over publication of WotC's magazines - Dragon, Dungeon, and Star Wars Insider. So taking back the license at a time that Paizo was hoping to forge stronger long term links was an existential threat. They had already lost the Star Wars license because LucasFilm called that back years before.

So, they definitely did have advance warning and pivoted to a replacement in the Adventure Paths, something they succeeded at because they had a substantial subscriber list (a list that included me). But even with the AP line and warning that 4e was coming, it wasn't released yet. So they kept publishing 3.5e-based stuff. There wasn't really an alternative. The PF RPG wasn't really a plan at the time. In fact, they were planning on possibly doing Second Darkness (AP3) for 4e, IF they had the materials in time. They didn't so, they kept doing 3.5e.

It doesn't seem to be until they learned more about 4e and its rules in February 2008 that they sealed the deal to go with their own version. But they had already committed to the idea that they no longer had time to have a product for the 4e launch because the license was so delinquent.

 

[mamba]

The OGL issue isn’t “over”. It’s a permanent feature of the hobby now, the 5e SRD in CC memorializes it.

it also isn’t over in the sense that as the game evolves, new SRDs are needed / should be released. Doing so is certainly one major factor for how I feel about WotC

 

[Reynard]

YOU are the usual suspects my man! Look around and read the room. It's YOU who is the usual suspects on this topic, not me. I was upset about the OGL thing and let it go long ago. No sympathy for corporations, I just got over it once they dumped enough IP intro the CC that I could do whatever I wanted with that amount of IP including replicate anything not already in it and future stuff.

Are you trying to score point for being reasonable and ethical while only caring about yourself and ignoring the companies and people who STILL rely on the OGL because their games are based on material released under that and not CC?

Because oof.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Are you trying to score point for being reasonable and ethical while only caring about yourself and ignoring the companies and people who STILL rely on the OGL because their games are based on material released under that and not CC?

Because oof.

Mod Note:

Why are you responding to a post that drew red-text moderation? Paying attention to things like that is a god idea.