D&D 5E Hope for an open GSL?

[pemerton]

Is this WoTC before or after they had major outcry from fans about supporting material post-Essentials and cancelling the first quarter of products last year while they quickly tried to turn the PR nightmare around?

I'm not defending any PR. I think it's obvious to anyone that Essentials is poorly conceived from a publishing point of view - 4 books (RC, DM's book, HFL, HFK) that overlap signficantly but not fully in content, all of which many participants in the game have reason to own at least 2 of.

But that seems tangential at best to the design question.

 

[Kynn]

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.

How would that work? As I see it, it's kind of naive to think of 3PP as anything other than competitors.

There's one model that could have worked -- if WotC aggressively mined open content from 3.x products and just incorporated them back into their own products to save on R&D costs. However, I suspect that such an approach might actually have caused more ill-will toward the company to be worth it, and in any case, WotC didn't really do that (even though they could have).

 

[Kynn]

How much is a "ton" of errata?

If you look at the PHB 1, the most errata'd book in 4e, you'll find that about 5% of material actually saw any changes, and most of those were simply language fixes.

The big problem for me with errata is that they used them to push forward rules changes too. There's a difference between fixing a typo and fixing the game system.

I think they need to do both, mind you, but I don't think the "updates" system they've used wasn't the best idea. "Update" include both in kind of a mess -- both the "we made a mistake here" kind and the "we changed our mind her" kind.

 

[Kynn]

I know that Essentials doesn't change 4e in any dramatic fashion. The Rules Compendium is a compilation, not a revision. The new classes are extras, not substitutse (analogous to the *Power build options). The damage revision is the most dramatic thing. For some people it may be a major change. My mental arithmetic is pretty strong, so for me it's minor.

Damage revision came about in MM3 anyway, didn't it? So I guess MM3 (and the Dark Sun MM) are part of this hypothetical "4.5" version that people are claiming exists.

 

[pemerton]

Damage revision came about in MM3 anyway, didn't it? So I guess MM3 (and the Dark Sun MM) are part of this hypothetical "4.5" version that people are claiming exists.

Yes.

I could be wrong, but my impression is that the 4.5 label is used more by those who don't, than those who do, play 4e. Whereas my impression was also that the 3E/3.5E distinction was mostly seen as important by those who played 3E - while someone like me, who was not a 3E player to any great extent, doesn't really have a feel for how big it was.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It wasn't a failure.

You're operating under the assumption that 3.5 was a reaction to the performance of 3.0. In this, you are mistaken. 3.5 was planned from the very beginning, when 3.0 launched. But don't take my word for it, take Monte Cook's. Here's the relevant excerpt:

Of course, he went on to say:

So, one has to surmise that the new business team determined that sales were slumping slightly earlier than predicted and needed 3.5 to come out earlier. One also has to surmise that someone -- at some level -- decided that it was to be a much, much more thorough revision than previously planned. Some of this is probably just human nature (two of the 3.0 designers were out of the way, and one would only work at Wizards of the Coast for about half the design time) and some of it is probably the belief that more revenue would be generated with more drastic changes. The philosophy of 3.5 has changed from being a financial "shot in the arm" into something with significant enough changes to make it a "must-buy." Perhaps they thought to strive for the sales levels of 2000. Perhaps there was corporate pressure to reach those sales levels again.

So, yeah, 3.0, not doing so well...

One change a former DM of mine noted in 3.5 vs 3.0 - In 3.0, suplements weren't chock-full of power inflation, in 3.5, they were, and they were heavily player-directed. If you're going to sell suplements, you have 4 or 5 or 6 or even 10 players per DM. If you sell a modulet to a DM, you sell one module, and all those people enjoy it. If you sell a suplement that makes one class better, you sell a copy or two of it per group, to those playing that class. If you sell a suplement with some power inflation for /everyone/, OTOH, you sell one overpowered feat or item or PrC to each of them, for the price of a full book.

Don't know if anyone really thought that through, but is sure seems like 3.5 suplements were targetted at selling to players to make their characters a little better.

 

[Kynn]

One change a former DM of mine noted in 3.5 vs 3.0 - In 3.0, suplements weren't chock-full of power inflation, in 3.5, they were, and they were heavily player-directed. If you're going to sell suplements, you have 4 or 5 or 6 or even 10 players per DM. If you sell a modulet to a DM, you sell one module, and all those people enjoy it. If you sell a suplement that makes one class better, you sell a copy or two of it per group, to those playing that class. If you sell a suplement with some power inflation for /everyone/, OTOH, you sell one overpowered feat or item or PrC to each of them, for the price of a full book.

Don't know if anyone really thought that through, but is sure seems like 3.5 suplements were targetted at selling to players to make their characters a little better.

Well, it's a reasonable business model.

4e mostly avoided this by restricting the number of options in initial releases, such that each subsequent book (Martial Power, Arcane Power, etc.) didn't actually offer much in direct power increases to existing characters, but offered alternate builds and thus more flexibility.

 

[Jack99]

Yes.

I could be wrong, but my impression is that the 4.5 label is used more by those who don't, than those who do, play 4e. Whereas my impression was also that the 3E/3.5E distinction was mostly seen as important by those who played 3E - while someone like me, who was not a 3E player to any great extent, doesn't really have a feel for how big it was.

You are not wrong. That's exactly how things are.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Yet, I've got a stack of OGL material here that has abysmal proofreading (ores instead of orcs being one of the most egregious, thank you Alderac EG) and absolutely horrid mechanics (I'm looking at you Mongoose and certainly in the direction of Sword and Sorcery Press). But, when it comes down to actual comparisons, suddenly WOTC's not doing too badly.

I'd xp you for this again too. White Wolf is also pretty bad in this regards known for their page XX references. ANd man was Mongoose terrible. Ugh. But let's be fair here, Mongoose has long been known for their editing issues and get called to the carpet all the time for their other flaws in terms of book binding, etc...

 

[JoeGKushner]

Yes.

I could be wrong, but my impression is that the 4.5 label is used more by those who don't, than those who do, play 4e. Whereas my impression was also that the 3E/3.5E distinction was mostly seen as important by those who played 3E - while someone like me, who was not a 3E player to any great extent, doesn't really have a feel for how big it was.

Since I play 4e and Pathfinder how exactly does that work for me? Do I have to take a picture of my shelf with my 4e material and 3rd party 4e material (thanks Goodman and ERP for Freeport 4e) to showcase that I'm not talking out of a dark place?

We can say that 4e is more of a 'living' system than 3e/3.5 was, but to me, if you only played 4e with the original books, rituals and all, then have someone who started off with essentials, both running through say, the first 4e module, the Shadow Keep, you're going to wind up with different play experiences.