D&D 5E (2014) Hope for an open GSL?

[Mark CMG]

No. It is not a rewrite/revision of any classes, and it's a little mischievous of you to suggest that I said otherwise. It adds 10 new (sub)classes.

And they're not mostly more complex. In my post, I suggested that wizards and druids are at the same complexity. I didn't mention clerics, but I think an Essentials cleric is fairly similar in complexity to a PHB cleric. The warlock is simpler in one respect - no cursing - but more complex in another - weapon/implement interaction, plus pet. I didn't mention the paladin, but I think it's pretty similar in complexity.

Fighters, as I noted, are simpler. The thief, as I noted, is arguably more complex in build but probably simpler in play. The only classes that I think are clearly more complex are the rangers.

Once again, I wonder how familiar with Essentials you really are. What makes you think it is a revision of any classes? That's like saying the Unearthed Arcana thief-acrobat is a rewrite/revision of the PHB thief (ie incorrect!).

So, you feel, not rewrites or revisions, but differently written and now at varying complexities compared to the originals, and you still need the original core books to play?

 

[Hussar]

Right. As long as we ignore the actual success of an edition with the OGL and lack of comparable success from one without it, and ignore what Ryan Dancey has to say, and so, etc.




So, you believe that 4.XE tried to duplicate the success of 3.XE but don't recognize some difference in their successes. Plus, you still insist on using some odd timeline where 3.XE is five years instead of eight, and 4.XE is somehow five years when we're still shy of four years.

What odd timeline? 3e lasted 3 years. 3.5 lasted 5 years. 3.5 IS A NEW EDITION OF THE GAME. It replaced the previous edition. It is not the same game. You cannot use 3e material at any official Organized Play event after 3.5 was released. 3e support ended the second 3.5 was released.

It's pretty disengenious to pretend that 3.x is all one big happy family.

/edit to add - 5 years is pretty easy to calculate MarkCMG. Release date June 2008. 5e release date 2013. Last time I checked, that was 5 years.

It's really difficult discussing things with you when you don't want to even agree on some things that others on both sides of the discussion would regular not dispute.

What would we not dispute? That there exists a 4.5 edition? Well, I'd say that's in pretty strong dispute wouldn't you? That 3e and 3.5e are separate entities? I'd say that's pretty obvious on the face of it.

See, while I agree that 3e did very well, my argument hinges on the idea that 3e's success and 4e's lack of success had anything whatsoever to do with the OGL. If the OGL was pushing sales of 3e the way you are claiming, then why did 3e get replaced so early? If WOTC were still banging out books at the same rate as 2000, then wouldn't they keep on with 3e?

But, apparently, sales tanked pretty quickly. Was that because of the OGL and the mountain of crap that got produced? Maybe. I don't know.

All I know is, the non-OGL 4e is going to have a half life longer than 3e or 3.5. Six years between editions isn't exactly a rocketing pace. Seems pretty standard. How much of an effect does the OGL apparently have on the longevity of an edition? Apparently none. The non-OGL version lasts just as long as the OGL version.

And, let's not forget, 4e wasn't exactly a failure. A second print run before the game is even released is pretty healthy. IIRC they did go into a third print run as well. 4e was a failure if you presume success was the level they pitched to Hasbro. As an RPG, it did pretty darn well.

But, all this aside, the basic question remains - how much of an effect, if any did the OGL have?

Until you, or anyone else, can answer that with anything other than anecdote, it's pretty difficult to say whether or not the OGL was a good thing or not.

 

[SkidAce]

Until you, or anyone else, can answer that with anything other than anecdote, it's pretty difficult to say whether or not the OGL was a good thing or not.

If you mean from a business point of view, then I think most everything you have said is fairly accurate.

But if you mean was the OGL a good thing...I refer to my earlier post.

 

[Mark CMG]

(snip)

I'm amazed that you consider 4.XE under the GSL a success relative to 3.XE under the OGL considering how much of the market share is now taken over by Pathfinder and other OGL games as well as many non-OGL games like Savage Worlds. Considering that PF as an OGL game has apparently rivaled D&D in sales for some time now seems like pretty strong evidence of the strength of using the OGL even if we were to set aside the rest of the above mentioned evidence which you continue to ignore and/or reject for whatever reasons. Anyway, you've made your case against using the OGL and I am sure that those within WotC who monitor these types of threads will consider your point of view while making their decisions going forward. Just out of curiosity, if 5E were to be released under the OGL, would you be against buying it (assuming they otherwise do a good job designing the game)?

 

[BryonD]

What odd timeline? 3e lasted 3 years. 3.5 lasted 5 years. 3.5 IS A NEW EDITION OF THE GAME. It replaced the previous edition. It is not the same game. You cannot use 3e material at any official Organized Play event after 3.5 was released. 3e support ended the second 3.5 was released.

It's pretty disengenious to pretend that 3.x is all one big happy family.

/edit to add - 5 years is pretty easy to calculate MarkCMG. Release date June 2008. 5e release date 2013. Last time I checked, that was 5 years.

You are bending over backwards there to declare 3.5 a new edition of the game.

But if we want to play that way Essentials came out in 2010.

What would we not dispute? That there exists a 4.5 edition? Well, I'd say that's in pretty strong dispute wouldn't you? That 3e and 3.5e are separate entities? I'd say that's pretty obvious on the face of it.

I mixed 3E and 3.5 stuff all the time.

Six years between editions isn't exactly a rocketing pace. Seems pretty standard.

4E was released in June 2008. According to WotC quotes they started working on 5E in "late 2010". In 18 months they had internally thrown in the towel.

 

[trancejeremy]

You can't really compare 4e sales to 3e, because 4e is the only edition that had to compete with the previous one being supported by a top notch company with official ties to the past edition.

I actually think that's the problem with D&D - WOTC was supposed to be a savior from the poor management of TSR, but I think they've turned out to be even worse, at least with their RPG division (not surprising, since they inherited a lot of people from the tail end of the TSR era).

Between the OGL and farming out Dungeon & Dragon magazine to Paizo, they basically handed the keys to the D&D business to them.

What would 3e have done if it had to compete with another company putting out AD&D 1st or 2nd edition? One that had some ties to the game? Like perhaps say, Games Workshop? They published the game in the UK (and did some products). I suspect a lot of people would have kept playing AD&D if such a company supported it.


And the other thing is, where are all the third party Pathfinder products? About the only ones I've seen for print are from Frog God Games, and those are very limited editions. The vast majority of third party products seem to be PDFs, which I'm sure have their buyers, but probably in the low thousands

 

[Alzrius]

And the other thing is, where are all the third party Pathfinder products? About the only ones I've seen for print are from Frog God Games, and those are very limited editions.

That just means you're not looking hard enough.

The vast majority of third party products seem to be PDFs, which I'm sure have their buyers, but probably in the low thousands

I'm not sure what your point here is. Yes, most third-party products for Pathfinder are PDF-only, with some having print-on-demand instead of print runs with pre-set amounts.

The OGL boom was a bubble - it was always going to burst when the initial excitement wore off and the demand started to wane, to say nothing of the supply catching up (and, of course, 3.5 throwing cold water on a lot of people).

Throw in bad economic times and a more-fractured niche of a niche (of a niche) fan base, and it's to be expected that more third-party publishers, which tend to not be full-time companies, are going with a safer, cheaper format for distribution.

 

[JoeGKushner]

And the other thing is, where are all the third party Pathfinder products? About the only ones I've seen for print are from Frog God Games, and those are very limited editions. The vast majority of third party products seem to be PDFs, which I'm sure have their buyers, but probably in the low thousands

You are not looking very hard.

I don't get on top of anything these days but even I found out about Lorefinder, a d20 supplement for pathfinder that takes the Gumshoe system and makes it fit the d20 system. My FLSG has dozens of Pathfinder 3rd party books.

When speaking of 'low thousands', once the heyday of the d20 buble popped, those are 'good' numbers. Hell, for some publishers in any field, those are good numbers.

 

[pemerton]

You can't really compare 4e sales to 3e, because 4e is the only edition that had to compete with the previous one being supported by a top notch company with official ties to the past edition.

I actually think that's the problem with D&D - WOTC was supposed to be a savior from the poor management of TSR, but I think they've turned out to be even worse, at least with their RPG division (not surprising, since they inherited a lot of people from the tail end of the TSR era).

Between the OGL and farming out Dungeon & Dragon magazine to Paizo, they basically handed the keys to the D&D business to them.

I think this is a reasonable analysis.

 

[pemerton]

So, you feel, not rewrites or revisions, but differently written and now at varying complexities compared to the originals, and you still need the original core books to play?

As I posted upthread, the Rules Compedium and DMG book reproduce, mostly with minor amendments if any (eg the Rules Compendium turns various 1st person passages from the PHB into 3rd person - hardly a massive rewrite!), the action resolution rules from the PHB and DMG.

Given that Essentials is the so-called "on ramp" for 4e, of course you don't need the original core books to play - unless you want to play one of the 20+ classes that have been published in 3 PHBs, Heroes of Shadow/Feywild/Elemental Chaos, etc.

Are you trying to prove that Essentials is a re-release? I don't thk that's controversial, given that it is the official raison d'etre of Essentials. But it doesn't change the action resolution mechanics. Other than the passage I quoted upthread from p 9 (I think) of the Rules Compendium, it doesn't change the guidelines for GMs. And the classes are new classes - supplementary material, from the point of view of an existing 4e player.

An Essentials knight doesn't displace a PHB (so-called "weaponmaster") fighter. They can be played side-by-side - something like an AD&D fighter and an AD&D ranger, or an AD&D cleric and an AD&D druid.

As I also posted upthread, I'm not that familiar with the 3E/3.5E differences, but my understanding is that a 3.5 ranger is intended not as a complement or alternative to a 3E ranger, but rather a better-balanced replacement. Assuming this is correct, it does have an analogue in 4e - namely, the revision/rebalancing of the PHB classes in the free Class Compendium online PDFs.