D&D 5E Hope for an open GSL?

[SkidAce]

Now, I know I'm just going to get blown off yet again with another round of posrepping whoever "rebuts" my point. But, to the rest of you reading this, step back and think for a second. Just who benefits from an OGL?

IMHO, it allows DnD to be played (and developed) in perpetuity. A game without an OGL can be "turned off".

Yes, as individuals we could continue to play, but development would cease.

The OGL did what it was supposed to do, it let the genie out of the bottle. From a business point of view, that may not have been as good a thing as some execs would like.


So I think we all benefit. IF interest in the OGL based system stays current. If interest in the game drops, then it would be just like it didnt have an OGL, nobody playing it and no development.

But with an OGL there is potential.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Just who benefits from an OGL?

Uh... the fans? I mean this one is blatantly obvious.

Scarred Lands, Midnight, Arcanis, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Nyambe, and a host of other settings combined with many general good books from Atlas via Dynasysties and Demigauges and others and Green Ronin like their race and class series to Fantasy Flight Games with their various hardcovers, mini-adventurers, and others.

The OGL allowed some phenominal products like World's Largest Dungeon (not the best dungeon product but a great single dungeon product worth stealing from), the city book Ptlous, the various Tome of Horrors books, etc... It also lead to some interesting innovations that may not have helped but were interesting like the mini-adventuers that were half sized sheets by AEG and Fantasy Flight.

So when you ask "who benefits", I have to wonder what type of D&D games during the 3rd edition era you were playing that didn't benefit from it.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Another benefit to the fans is the revival of support for older editions. Lesserton & Mor sits on my desktop as I write this. I'm not a player of those older editions but I like some of the stuff I've heard about this so bought it. This doesn't count Vornheim, a random city book encounter piece or other books I've bought because they sound interested.

Now could those books have been published without the OGL? Possibly. After all, Gardens of the Plant Master and all that.

And in many ways, this OSR bit helps WoTC coast as well because their new edition isn't going after fans of the old one by insulting the old playstyle or talking about how terrible the rules are. Rather it's going after old fans by talking about bridging the differences between playstyles and complexities.

These are good things even if they're only talking points.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], I'm not sure why the subtly of this argument escapes you. I haven't seen anyone arguing, at least not without some serious qualification, that the OGL was "responsible" for the success of 3rd Edition, or that the DDI was not successful on its own terms. /snip

A quick comparison on the above - 3.X has OGL, sells very well.
4e has GSL, sales poor enough that WotC began talking internally about 5e in 2010....

So, yes, the OGL does make a difference.

The Auld Grump

See, right there. That's the first one in this thread that came to mind. I'm sure there are others. And, nicely ignores the fact that 3.5 COMES OUT 2 years after 3e, rather than being announced 2 years after the release.

If the OGL was so responsible for 3e sales, then why the failure? Why didn't they maintain 3e sales to the point where 3.5 was released later on?

See, the idea that it's the fans that gain in the OGL is true on the face of it. One of the most successful campaigns I ran was using the World's Largest Dungeon. Considering the sum total of my WOTC purchases for 3.5 was the PHB and DMG and I still managed to drop enough cash to fill a couple of shelves of books, it's not like I didn't buy OGL material.

But, I also don't mistake my buying habits for any kind of general trend. I was always the only one in my group to even consider 3pp. Heck, it was an uphill battle to get Dragon material used in campaigns that I played in but didn't DM.

I think people grossly overestimate how valuable the OGL is. They look at their own buying habits and then presume that everyone else is the same. But, then, if I look at my own buying habits, the OGL was a failure for WOTC. They only managed to sell two books to me out of the hundreds of dollars I dropped on D&D material.

After all, if I have a 3PP book of seafaring rules, why would I buy the WOTC offering? If I already have 3 Creature Catalogs, why would I buy another Monster Manual?

No one ever talks about the chilling factors of the OGL. It's always "OGL = More Sales For WOTC", when there are other interpretations that are quite well supported by the historical facts. If OGL=More Sales, then why didn't they? Why, during the largest boom in 3pp sales, did WOTC's sales fall?

 

[Remus Lupin]

Well the syllogism that Auld Grump was using there seems to imply some kind of logical causation (e.g. that if A then B, not-B, therefore not-A), but I think his conclusion is more nuanced: It "made a difference," which I think it did, as I and many others have said. But it wasn't the sole factor.

I also think [MENTION=10479]Mark CMG[/MENTION] is right that it was quite probably a major factor (though again, not the single factor among all others; it worked in conduction with various other factors).

What will happen with 5th edition, when it arrives, will depend on a number of factors as well, as I stated above: Quality of design, degree of support, marketing, etc. But as I also said, and as others said before me, the OGL will give something to the alienated customer base that will help convinced them that "their" WOTC is back, and the the new game will be worth returning to because they can make it their own in the same way that they could 3rd ED.

Only time will tell of course, but my main point here is simply to note that most of the people here have been arguing a more nuanced point than you're fighting. As for [MENTION=6957]TheAuldGrump[/MENTION], I'll let him answer for himself as to whether you've accurately portrayed his intent.

 

[Mark CMG]

And, nicely ignores the fact that 3.5 COMES OUT 2 years after 3e, rather than being announced 2 years after the release.

3.0E - 2000
3.5E - 2003
4.0E - 2008
4.5E (Essentials) - 2010
5.0E - ?

It's always "OGL = More Sales For WOTC", when there are other interpretations that are quite well supported by the historical facts.

That's what former WotC employee Ryan Dancey claims. Are there other former WotC employees saying otherwise? WotC seems to shorten the cycle of an edition when sales are not up to expectations.

 

[Remus Lupin]

After all, if I have a 3PP book of seafaring rules, why would I buy the WOTC offering? If I already have 3 Creature Catalogs, why would I buy another Monster Manual?

Because its a better product that more adequately accomplishes what you want that material to accomplish? After all, ideally in an OGL situation it can take the OGL content from your seafaring book add its own, superior content to that, and make a better project, more streamlined and more slickly produced.

I can't tell you how many elf books I picked in the 3.0 heyday. Same with monk books, paladin books, wizard books (oh Gods, yes!), etc.

 

[trancejeremy]

Because its a better product that more adequately accomplishes what you want that material to accomplish? After all, ideally in an OGL situation it can take the OGL content from your seafaring book add its own, superior content to that, and make a better project, more streamlined and more slickly produced.

I can't tell you how many elf books I picked in the 3.0 heyday. Same with monk books, paladin books, wizard books (oh Gods, yes!), etc.

Unfortunately, I don't think WOTC is capable of such things. At least for 3.x, their products were probably in the middle of the pack of quality, and close to the bottom in many cases (the early splatbooks for instance).

Competition, while very good for consumers, is often bad companies, at least if they are poorly managed. Which frankly, I would say the D&D division at WOTC has been.

So despite having the D&D brand, WOTC did lose sales to third parties, because frankly, the third party stuff was often better done, and usually far more interesting.

I also hate to say this, but a lot of third party stuff was done by people who love D&D, while many of the people working on D&D at WOTC seem to be those that don't, coming from other styles of game systems. Monte Cook was a rolemaster guy, which is incredibly convoluted and complex. And Johnathan Tweet was a big artsy sort of gamer. Hiring him to make D&D was like hiring Ang Lee to direct a superhero movie. Great director, but complete mismatch...

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't think that open source is that important, to customers. It's very important to the rest of the industry, and it's had to very potent effects on D&D's fortunes this millenium.

1)Follow my Leader. Going open-source put D&D back in an industry-leadership (sales-wise if not exactly innovation) position. The RPG industry was fragmented in to teeny niches. Companies were faced with the choice, 'continue to focus on my teeny-tiny niche' or .maybe catch onto the coat-tails of the resurgent (if it resurges) 'first' RPG with it's almost-mainstream name recognition.' Not a tough choice. 3e was successful in part because it was a modest improvement over 2e, in part because of it's 'back to the dungeon' grognard apeal, and in part because everybody and his garage small-press company was making content for it.

2)There Can Be Only One. With open source publication to fall back on, fans who were in any degree change-adverse could stick with 3.5 /forever/. D&Ds biggest competition is now D&D. WotC can't leverage the open source advantage (1) without staying tied down to it. Innovation can't move away from it, only build out from it. Every ed of D&D has met a great deal of initial resistance from existing fans, but that resistance always melted away for lack of new material coming out for the old, and 'shiny' new stuff coming out for the new. The OGL changed that, 3.5-compatible d20 material continued to flow, ultimately including a clone of 3.5, Pathfinder. The OGL has made d20/3.5 immortal.

In light of the above, WotC might have not only make 5e open source, but to base it, however loosely, on the SRD, so it remains compatible, thus turning 3pps back into allies. Otherwise, d20/3.5/Pathfinder remains a competitor with a loyal fan base.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I think Hussar is right in that there can be a 'chilling' factor.

The OGL has, or should have, a 'skaff' effect on the core books.

Problem seems to be that WoTC wants everything to be core and wants every book to be bought and every book to be a sourcebook that is vital to the table.

This 'theory' was heavily put to the test in 4th edition with the deliberate split of certain 'core' monsters into the MM2 and certain classes and races into the PHB2.

But in terms of failure, if the OGL is responsible for the failure of 3rd ed if we consider 3.5 the fail point, how does that stack up with 5th edition being announced right after a huge line relaunch via Essentials? I know some are going to say it's not a .5 edition but lets look at it this way.... are you ever going to get an errata'd Player's Handbook for 4th edition? The answer is no. The Essentials books replaced the core 3 and that's pretty much a fair definition of a .5/revised/revisited/etc... rulebook in my eyes.

And all the while Pathfinder, who embraces the OGL and does what they do well, continue to move on and according to various sites, seem to sell more books.

Like others, I don't think an open GSL will be a substitute for WoTC doing the work. Paizo not only has the OGL but have embraced 3rd party publishers in a way that WoTC never did. From what I could tell, with a few exceptions, WoTC attitude was, "Do as thou will." They had some 'cool' moments like letting Goodman published their Beholder book and Paradigm their Mind Flayer book and letting the licenses out for Ravenloft, Gamma World, and Dragonlance but in terms of actually interacting with the OGL and 3rd party? One book that used some of the OGL (incorrectly I believe too) in one of the Monster Manuals, and one book of OGL content (some of it snipped from Chaosium ironically enough.)

My bet, as I've mentioned elswhere, is that Paizo is a gaming company and WoTC's D&D is a property for a coproration. The latter will not let them act like the former.