Darrin Drader
Explorer
Vigilance said:And as a result of that realization, they adopted a new license (the GSL) much more like an Apple license than an IBM "open platform".
IBM tried to stop the PC clone by suing the Compaq, which was the primary company doing it at the time. Their challenge failed in court and the rest is history. Fortunately WotC isn't dumb enough to make that mistake.
However, in trying to emulate Apple, they fail to look at why Apple doesn't have the market share. There is less software for it, it costs more, and other than having to deal with their counter-intuitive crap interface, there is no appreciable difference in functionality between an Apple and a PC. I'm sure that there are a couple people who would blow a gasket by reading that last sentence, but the fact is that for the past 10 years, you've been able to do everything with a PC that you could do with an Apple.
Now back to gaming. Is there anything that 4th edition does with the rules that you couldn't emulate with a 3.5 based product by tweaking a few things? I'm not saying that you should copy the at will/per encounter/per day structure, but there are certainly rules elements that could be added to a 3.5 based game to allow more movement options and attacks during combat, at will magical attacks, and special attacks that multiply damage dice. Streamlining the system has already been done with systems like True20.
If the D&D Vs. Pathfinder schism becomes like PC Vs. Apple, then the only question is what the customers will do. Will they continue to follow D&D out of brand loyalty, or will they adopt Pathfinder because of its open source nature and the greater amount of available material for it. To compare and contrast for a moment, D&Ds biggest advantage for a long time was that it did every product in color and most other publishers couldn't afford to do so. Now, not only is that not only not true, but you have Pathfinder publishing full color products on all of their products. D&D will (presumably) have more rules supplements while any Pathfinder player can use any 3.5 rules supplement ever produced by anyone, and they can produce their own rulebooks of their own if they so wish. D&D has a brand that goes back to the start of roleplaying (so did Apple in the computer field), while Pathfinder traces its roots back to the same brand and the same company. One is essentially completely completely open while the other is not. Which one will win in the end?