Is All Still Quiet on the SRD Front?
- Thread starter dmccoy1693
- Start date
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
Mr. Mona and Mr. Pramas: thanks also!
This reflected both the fine quality of many GR products, but also the weakness of in some early WotC products, especially player oriented supplements. (and I am guessing this is where the big numbers where for GR).
3.5 was clearly aimed at fixing that, and I am pretty sure that their 4thed "splat books" will not leave the huge openings for 3rd part publishers that say, "Sword and Fist" did. SRD or no SRD.
Pramas said:
This reflected both the fine quality of many GR products, but also the weakness of in some early WotC products, especially player oriented supplements. (and I am guessing this is where the big numbers where for GR).
3.5 was clearly aimed at fixing that, and I am pretty sure that their 4thed "splat books" will not leave the huge openings for 3rd part publishers that say, "Sword and Fist" did. SRD or no SRD.
The Little Raven
First Post
Erik Mona said:
If only more of your fans could learn from your example. You and Chris are both exemplars of professionalism, and I hope it all works out in the end (especially because I still want to see a new DragonFist!).
The Little Raven
First Post
Pramas said:
Well, wasn't one of Dancey's thoughts behind the whole OGL movement that growing the market as a whole gives more back to the market share leader as well? A bigger pie equals a bigger piece for Wizards? Do you think the d20 boom affected that strategy?
I think part of their concern with the new OGL is the level of quality of 3rd-party products. Let's face it, a good deal of those books that were sold during the d20 boom were crap, and negatively affected the perception of the 'd20 brand,' which is why not so many people use the d20STL and why it's getting canned for 4e.
mxyzplk
Explorer
Pramas said:
Mmm, I can, I think it's unwise. The brilliance of the SRD is that it greatly expanded the total marketplace. Unless you are dealing with a saturated market (e.g. Coke vs Pepsi) your success doesn't need to be built upon someone else's failure.
WotC harped for a long time about how they hated making adventures, how it was a loss item for them. OK fine, so loads of third parties are happy to step up to that. WotC at their most prolific are incapable of producing enough product for the marketplace, ESPECIALLY anything that's not pure D&D. Their support for all their auxiliary lines (d20 Modern, Wheel of Time, Star Wars, CoC d20, etc) has been pathetic.
Having a thriving marketplace contributes to a company's success, it doesn't detract from it, that's 1950s-think. Modern business theory indicates that dirving people in your segment out of business is often unwise.
The company I work for is in computer-based measurement and automation. Pop quiz - when one of our major competitors (and using competitior in the more modern sense; the resell a couple of our products and we collaborate on some sales despite having product lines that overlap) posts bad financials, what do you think happens to our stock? Does it go up or down? Right, down. It's taken as an indicator of the viability of the entire market segment.
Venture capitalists. What do they look for in a company nowadays? Competition! They figure if you're the only person doing something that something must suck.
Anyway, it's unsurprising to me that general forum folks aren't all up on business strategy, but I certainly hope that WotC doesn't subscribe to such outdated ideas that they think it would be *good* for them in any way to drive the various other RPG companies out of business.
Because think about the alternative situation. Everyone else goes out of business, or they say "No OGL for y'all!" They keep up their crack schedule of publishing a couple adventures a year. My response? Play more WoW or pursue other hobbies. They marginalize their entire market segment to the point where people don't find enough there to hold their interest.
The Little Raven
First Post
mxyzplk said:
Only two of these (Star Wars and d20 Modern) are game lines, the others are one-shot licensed products. Star Wars has been supported as a miniature line recently, rather than the RPG, because the RPG wasn't as profitable. There's also certain things you can/can't do when doing licensed products.
Orcus
First Post
Like Chris and Erik, we havent seen the 4E rules in any form yet either.
But lets review the 3E launch. There was no SRD before launch. We got copies of the draft PHB and MM, then later the DMG a few months before launch. No more than 3. (In fact, I still have my spiral bound photocopies of the draft rules
)
Ryan had started a discussion list. On that list, just prior to launch, he sent an email to the list addressed to me saying, essentailly: "To Clark and anyone else wanting to make products for D&D, you can use the draft rules but with these restrictions--dont use setting info, etc." This permission email became the "gentleperson's agreement." There wasnt a formal SRD for over a year after launch. Looking at the legal pages of some of our early products, it was well over a year before things were fully detailed, maybe more.
So I dont expect a full formalized SRD prior to launch for 4E. I expect that we will see draft rules and have a preliminary OGL-style document that allows the use of the draft rules. In fact, I would be surprised if we see a full content-stripped SRD in the style of the 3E SRD at all for 4E and for good reason. In my view, the work that was required to update the SRD for WotC was one of the reasons that they did not continue to update it--which meant we 3rd party companies couldnt support their newer books. And I think everyone realizes now that was not the best model. I think there is strong support for the idea that we 3rd party guys can help them sell books beyond just the core 3 and allowing us to reference that content helps them.
I'll admit I am disappointed that we dont have the draft rules yet. We have been told we would get them "soon" for some time now. Like Erik, I have gone from waiting for them every day for two months now to just saying when we get them we get them.
That said, I think it is a major mistake for WotC to not "help us help them." The primary 3rd party publishers who still support D&D have really loyal and dedicated fans who will be influenced by what those third party companies choose to do. We represent a very important core group of gamers that I cant imagine WotC wants left behind. And if at launch there is an edition rift, I see that as a big problem for WotC fragmenting the player base. And I hate the idea of our player base being fragmented, because that means the game gets fragmented and who is kidding who table top roleplaying--while it will always be my favorite--runs the risk of going the way of the dodo bird. As goes the industry leader, so goes the industry. I dont even want to imagine what would happen to table top roleplaying if 4E fails to dig in and get traction. I appreciate they want new players. That is a great goal. But you have existing players--players who are very loyal to some awesome 3rd party companies. I just dont know why they wouldnt be all over getting us the rules so we can be there to help them with the launch of 4E. I dont think WotC can afford not to address this group that we represent. Heck, you go on our boards and Paizo's boards and you see people who are reluctant about 4E and who say clearly they will really look to us to see what we do. My goal is to go 4E, but WotC is sure making it tough for me to do that, and certainly tough to do it at launch. And if I cant do it at launch, that makes me have to take some real hard looks at some real tough decisions.
I think if many of the people who are reluctant about 4E saw Chris and Erik and me and Joseph making some cool, kick a$$ stuff that has the feel they like, they would be more willing to consider 4E. I know for a fact this is true. I am living proof of it--it happened with our 3E freebie Wizard's Amulet. Many of you may remember, but some may not. There was a similar uproar about 3E--its too anime, the sample art is all spikey, its all gen-x, its all drizzt, we dont like it, we wont ever buy it, etc. There was alot of resistance. I put out Wizard's Amulet as a free adventure to get people back to D&D and to try 3E. I cant tell you how many people emailed me and said "I had no desire to play 3E, in fact I said I never would, but I downloaded WA for free and tried it and loved it. I didnt come to 3E because of what WotC did, I came to 3E because of Necromancer." I am telling you that the same thing can happen for 4E. People have really come to trust some of us 3rd party publishers. And I know for a fact that some--heck, I'll go farther and say more than some, a good chunk--will check out the stuff that Paizo and Goodman and Necro do and they may well come to 4E not because of WotC but because of us. And I think WotC knows that--no, I know they know that. Which makes our lack of the rules all the more surprising to me.
I also know this. I believe in the people at WotC. I really like Scott Rouse. I believe him when they say they support open gaming and they want to help us support 4E. I appreciate their time crunch and the pressure to get the new edition out. I just really hope we can be there for 4E.
But lets review the 3E launch. There was no SRD before launch. We got copies of the draft PHB and MM, then later the DMG a few months before launch. No more than 3. (In fact, I still have my spiral bound photocopies of the draft rules
)Ryan had started a discussion list. On that list, just prior to launch, he sent an email to the list addressed to me saying, essentailly: "To Clark and anyone else wanting to make products for D&D, you can use the draft rules but with these restrictions--dont use setting info, etc." This permission email became the "gentleperson's agreement." There wasnt a formal SRD for over a year after launch. Looking at the legal pages of some of our early products, it was well over a year before things were fully detailed, maybe more.
So I dont expect a full formalized SRD prior to launch for 4E. I expect that we will see draft rules and have a preliminary OGL-style document that allows the use of the draft rules. In fact, I would be surprised if we see a full content-stripped SRD in the style of the 3E SRD at all for 4E and for good reason. In my view, the work that was required to update the SRD for WotC was one of the reasons that they did not continue to update it--which meant we 3rd party companies couldnt support their newer books. And I think everyone realizes now that was not the best model. I think there is strong support for the idea that we 3rd party guys can help them sell books beyond just the core 3 and allowing us to reference that content helps them.
I'll admit I am disappointed that we dont have the draft rules yet. We have been told we would get them "soon" for some time now. Like Erik, I have gone from waiting for them every day for two months now to just saying when we get them we get them.
That said, I think it is a major mistake for WotC to not "help us help them." The primary 3rd party publishers who still support D&D have really loyal and dedicated fans who will be influenced by what those third party companies choose to do. We represent a very important core group of gamers that I cant imagine WotC wants left behind. And if at launch there is an edition rift, I see that as a big problem for WotC fragmenting the player base. And I hate the idea of our player base being fragmented, because that means the game gets fragmented and who is kidding who table top roleplaying--while it will always be my favorite--runs the risk of going the way of the dodo bird. As goes the industry leader, so goes the industry. I dont even want to imagine what would happen to table top roleplaying if 4E fails to dig in and get traction. I appreciate they want new players. That is a great goal. But you have existing players--players who are very loyal to some awesome 3rd party companies. I just dont know why they wouldnt be all over getting us the rules so we can be there to help them with the launch of 4E. I dont think WotC can afford not to address this group that we represent. Heck, you go on our boards and Paizo's boards and you see people who are reluctant about 4E and who say clearly they will really look to us to see what we do. My goal is to go 4E, but WotC is sure making it tough for me to do that, and certainly tough to do it at launch. And if I cant do it at launch, that makes me have to take some real hard looks at some real tough decisions.
I think if many of the people who are reluctant about 4E saw Chris and Erik and me and Joseph making some cool, kick a$$ stuff that has the feel they like, they would be more willing to consider 4E. I know for a fact this is true. I am living proof of it--it happened with our 3E freebie Wizard's Amulet. Many of you may remember, but some may not. There was a similar uproar about 3E--its too anime, the sample art is all spikey, its all gen-x, its all drizzt, we dont like it, we wont ever buy it, etc. There was alot of resistance. I put out Wizard's Amulet as a free adventure to get people back to D&D and to try 3E. I cant tell you how many people emailed me and said "I had no desire to play 3E, in fact I said I never would, but I downloaded WA for free and tried it and loved it. I didnt come to 3E because of what WotC did, I came to 3E because of Necromancer." I am telling you that the same thing can happen for 4E. People have really come to trust some of us 3rd party publishers. And I know for a fact that some--heck, I'll go farther and say more than some, a good chunk--will check out the stuff that Paizo and Goodman and Necro do and they may well come to 4E not because of WotC but because of us. And I think WotC knows that--no, I know they know that. Which makes our lack of the rules all the more surprising to me.
I also know this. I believe in the people at WotC. I really like Scott Rouse. I believe him when they say they support open gaming and they want to help us support 4E. I appreciate their time crunch and the pressure to get the new edition out. I just really hope we can be there for 4E.
hazel monday
First Post
Orcus said:
This is such a good point. I totally want 4.0 to be awesome. I want my whole group to like 4.0, absorb it, and have fun with it. But WOTC's recent questionable decisions (withdrawing licenses from good publishers, canceling Dungeon & Dragon etc..) and their horrible marketing (c'mon, that ze game remains ze same ad was bowel clenchingly bad. It was the first time I was embarrassed to be a gamer) really gives me reason to doubt them.
Now I'm thinking "It's ok if WOTC drops the ball on the game. At least there's still Paizo and Necromancer to still support the game. So even if I don't like the newest edition, I'll probably still enjoy a decent 3rd party interpretation of it."
Now I'm growing concerned that won't even happen.
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