How do you feel about WOTC, the 3PP and the intent of the GSL

[amethal]

For myself, I always considered the OGL a surprising gift from WotC. Now a lot of people seem to think it's a right, and that's an attitude I neither share nor understand.

Clearly the OGL isn't a right.

However, it was something that I really enjoy about 3rd edition (it might even be my favourite part), but which WotC has decided to remove from 4th edition without explanation.

The prduct line clause also created the potential for them taking away some OGL products that were previously available but which I hadn't yet been able to buy. In practice no OGL product lines have been "updated" to the GSL so that at least is a non issue so far.

 

[EricNoah]

If there were a lot of enthusiastic 3rd party publishers heading in the 4E direction, momentum might have taken me along with them. As it is, and with other factors as they are (the nature of the game itself, the fact that my players are happy to stay with 3.x, etc.) just makes switching a more and more remote possibility.

 

[amethal]

If there were a lot of enthusiastic 3rd party publishers heading in the 4E direction, momentum might have taken me along with them. As it is, and with other factors as they are (the nature of the game itself, the fact that my players are happy to stay with 3.x, etc.) just makes switching a more and more remote possibility.

I was planning to pick up the 4th edition Tome of Horrors and the first 4th edition Pathfinder.

In theory I was going to convert them for my 3rd edition games but there was a distinct possibility they'd convince me to pick up the 4th edition core books instead.

 

[El Mahdi]

As someone who just recently came back to the hobby (and D&D) after 20+ years, I have to wonder how many current D&D players (regardless of edition) even know, let alone understand, these concepts of GSL, OGL, 3PP and so on. It took me weeks to "get up to date" on the debate, time I feel was totally wasted in hindsight. 4E arguably has brought a number of totally new people into the game, has brought a number of former players such as myself back to the game, and I would think a number of people who played a previous edition have "upgraded" to 4E without ever knowing any of this extraneous industry stuff.

In other words, there must be a pretty healthy percentage of D&D players who do not use the Internet as a large part of their hobby, don't use the WOTC boards (or ENWorld, or RPG.net, or any other place where this debate is going on), and may not even know the difference between a WOTC supplement and a 3PP supplement when the time comes. I know nobody has said that the opinions here are the end-all be-all of the D&D marketplace, but I really wonder how much this is all just a debate between a few hundred people on all of these boards, with little or no impact either way on the market?
. . .

Whether or not they understand it, or are aware of the 3PP market, it affects the industry nonetheless. In the 90's, before WoTC bought TSR, the gaming industry in general was in danger of collapsing. There were a lot of good games out there, but for the market, it ended up being too many games. Everyone had there own system along with there settings and campaign worlds. If you wanted to play Rifts, you had to use Palladium rules; if you wanted to play Vampire, you had to use White Wolf rules; if you wanted to play Shadowrun, you had to use Shadowrun rules, if you wanted to play Star Wars, you had to use West End Games D6 rules. There was just too many games out there and a lot of game companies and really good games disappeared. When WoTC made the OGL, suddenly, these small game companies could get in on the market with products that WoTC wasn't going to make anyway. If you loved a campaign setting that another game had, you didn't have to go buy there system rule books in order to play it, odds were they had a D20 version. There is no doubt that the OGL saved the RPG industry. However, the GSL seems to be doing the opposite, causing the industry to break apart again. History has shown that the industry can't survive that way, and whether people understand or not, it will affect WoTC. Nothing happens in a vaccuum. Damage to the Industry is Damage to WoTC.

Fortunately, even if the RPG market goes the way of the Dodo, and WoTC becomes just a memory, the OGL will still be there, and I'm sure, on the internet (along with other open systems) in infinate permutations, for as long as people are interested in role playing.

 

[El Mahdi]

Frankly, I always kept my chocolate and peanut butter seperated. Meaning that before I gave up trying to DM 3.x (in part due to real life taking over and stealing all my players, granted, but in part due to burnout), I had to bring the hammer down on the rules lawyers in my group. I loved Arcana Unearthed, and think Monte Cook did wonders with it, but I frankly got very tired very quickly of the variable quality of other third party publishers. When we were playing D&D, the only books allowed in play were official WotC D&D books; the fact that noone challenged this outside of our rules lawyer and most offered words of relief implied that I wasn't the only one sick of the power creep inherent to trying to keep up with all the crap on the market. When we played Arcana Unearthed, in a similar vein, we only used the books for that setting.

I'm comfortable with this philosophy and the generally levelled playing field it brings me. So, frankly, I don't care what the 3PPs do with themselves at this point. I wish them luck, sure, because they help the RPG industry to grow... but it doesn't hurt my feelings if I can't buy stuff they make for 4E. I wouldn't be buying it, anyway.

I understand where you're coming from and agree, but only about splat books and such. The OGL exceled when it came to other game company campaigns and settings. It was so great to be able to pick up another setting or campaign from another company in D20 dressing, rather than learning their rules set in order to play their setting. You could essentially take a standard D&D character, and with or without some minor tweaking, drop that same character into a Star Wars game, D20 Modern/Future, DarkMatter and StarDrive, or White Wolf Ravenloft, or Freeport, or L5R, or Spycraft, or ...

Of course not all game companies did this (I so wanted a Palladium conversion for Palladium and Rifts), but I bought a lot of campaign settings I wouldn't have bought if it hadn't been for D20 compatibility.

 

[Jackelope King]

I'm quite unhappy with the GSL, but that doesn't change my opinion of the quality of 4e otherwise. WotC continues to put out very good game products, which they've been doing pretty regularly over the past decade. However, I'm unhappy with the way WotC is using the GSL, and I don't think it'll create the same "safety net" of D&D replacements that are still in D&D's neighborhood (I switched to Mutants & Masterminds a couple of years ago... had it not been for M&M, I'd be playing HERO most likely, and D&D products would be that much less-relevant to me).

That said, D&D 4e is good. It should be fun to play. But I can understand why publishers don't want to support the GSL, and strongly prefer the OGL over it.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Many are probably 1. lying, 2. not playing D&D right now anyways, or 3. intending to quit for multiple reasons, of which this is only one.

By 'quit playing D&D', I imagine a lot of people mean 'play Pathfinder'. That is certainly the case for me.

It isn't very classy to attribute the response to this poll to lying , by the way.

Ken

 

[Wicht]

By 'quit playing D&D', I imagine a lot of people mean 'play Pathfinder'. That is certainly the case for me.

Yeah, there really wasn't a good choice for 'playing D&D' using an older ruleset than 4e.

 

[pawsplay]

"Playing D&D" is not the opposite of disliking the GSL. I think the GSL is an affront to D&D fans and to intellectual property law, but I have no intention of abandoning 3.5, although I think I may do a GURPS game next.

 

[dragonlordofpoondari]

The GSL makes 4e much less attractive to me. First, I've lost respect for WotC for taking this position. That's not to mention the way they've left 3pp hanging in the wind. Second, if WotC is going to be producing the lion's share of game materials, I forsee mostly mediocrity in this game's future.

Paizo, Necromancer Games, and Green Ronin tend to write material that is much more closely suited to my tastes.

I'll continue to play older editions, as well as Pathfinder and some D20 games. I'm sorry to say that this is the first edition of D&D I will not be investing in.