Based on the other discussion prompted by Ben Riggs. I never posted in the thread here, but I did respond to him and James Lowder directly on the FB post they other day. The discussion was around how the OGL impacted non-d20 publishes. Ben said that the OGL helped 3PP but that wasn't really the issue James said. He said (and I agree) that the OGL hurt non-d20 publishers/games because it was designed to take out the competition.
Ben mentioned Free League and the One Ring being successful, which ironically supported what James and I were saying. I.e., Free League moved to the OGL and for a good reason.
The only OGL free league has used themselves is for TOR2's LOTR parallel.
And that largely wasn't their choice, so much as part of the deal with the designer (who holds the actual license).
There is an SRD for the YZE, but the compatibility marking is only for the Free League Workshop program.
Publishers started making D&D compatible products if they wanted any sales.
I've only bought 4 projects claiming D&D 5e compatibility, 2 of them sucked harder than the NASA space suit testing facility's air evacuation pumps. The other two (Monarchies of Mau/Pugmire, and SG-1) are significantly different.
Both have been profitable for their design teams, and have had significant merit for being different in key ways.
Instead, I want to offer a more general poll. IF (and while possible, it's still speculation) WoTC's direction is to go digital behind paywalls with a much more limited license for the new version of D&D, which results in other companies putting out their own systems, how well do you think they will do?
How willing are you to learn and play a new system outside of D&D.
In 2023 I've run Savage Worlds (in the Deadlands setting), Twilight 2000 4e, a hacked version of MegaTraveller, WFRP 1e, Alien, Blade Runner, and Cyclopedia edition D&D (Alston's edition, the sequel to BECMI; Denning's Big Black Basic was it's starter set).
Blade Runner came out this year. T2K 4e came out just as the pandemic lockdown was relaxing. I'd not run Savage Worlds before, but have had a copy since 2012 or so. I'd not run the Deadlands setting before (as DL as a standalone had a nightmare char gen according to my wife...).
I've run at least 1 new-to-me system every year since 1985. Many years 5+ new systems. This does count edition changes when they are identifiably by the contents of a hand-written sheet (due to att changes, or skill lists, or different weapon data, etc), or due to significant mechanical changes.
How willing are casual players or new players to do that?
Many casual players won't go behind the paywall, or will cheat and share accounts.
Pirate scans will hit the web as fast as people can break the DRM on the website.
Will big companies like Paizo, MCDM, and Kobold Press succeed with their own system?
For certain versions of "succeed", yes. I expect MCDM is going to make more than they would have by being a medium fish in the D&D pond... What I skimmed of the publicly available isn't in my interest zone, but it's good enough that I expect between his visibility and the extant fan base, it's going to, like Pathfinder, probably last.
Will it be as big as 3PP were in the late 80s with White Wolf, or are those days of non-D&D games being popular gone?
Knowing the actual numbers for GDW... Mongoose has sold more Traveller corebooks than Marc Miller has for any given edition save 1... the 190K and counting cores for Classic. I can't be sure, because Matt "I am Mongoose" Sprange is far less open about hard numbers than Marc is. Marc's getting a nice cut, but PDF of classic is still moving in interestingly large amounts. Large enough that Marc is working on a remastered edition of CT.
Do smaller companies have a chance of more than a dozen people or so people play their games (that's a bit hyperbole, but you get the point)?
Traveller has a thousand-a-month log-ins in its official forums, and hundred a month active posters. Most of the accounts identify as GM's. So, yeah, Marc's 4 person shop is doing sales. Matt's also doing a lot of sales of traveller, and Mongoose isn't exactly big.
Modiphius is actively selling new materials aplenty for its 2d20 lines... Star Trek and Dune, especially, but also Fallout.
Free League has two huge licenses - Alien and Blade Runner - plus a raft of in-house, and is serving as publisher for a number of 3pp's, including the runaway hit of Mork Borg. On top of that, they've splashed with Dragonbane and it's got a bunch of 3pp participants in the "Free League Workshop" programs...
The OGL debacle by WotC poured outside spotlites on the second tier, the third tier, and the toxic monopolistic behavior of WotC. HasBro ain't gonna close WotC, but they are going to try to get more monopolistic.
I also expect chatbots will get better... but they're not going to replace the group-at-table. They're going to get a lot of "can't find a group" types laments, much like a lot of my friends relied upon Infocom text adventures to bide us through lean gaming times.