D&D 5E Is D&D Next Open?

[darjr]

I do think that if the OGL was a slam dunk we'd know by now.

 

[JVisgaitis]

You would have thought they would have wanted publisher support right out of the gate. Sounds like the whole 4e GSL thing all over again. Disappointing...

 

[Warskull]

Nothing has been said and it is really hard to gauge things. In 4th edition Wizard's dropped the OGL and was very much against selling the game in electronic formats (PDFs.) They were using piracy as an excuse to some degree. This absolutely cost them marketshare to Pathfinder (obviously other factors are at play too, but Pathfinder's lower price point was a factor.) The game was just much more accessible. You could go read wiki's online to look over the rules and start playing without buying rulebooks. If you liked it you could buy a physical rulebook or drop $10-20 on a pdf. You had lower price points of entry.

Wizard's seems to recognize the threat Pathfinder has become. They have been pushing dndclassics.com lately. So their attitudes may be changing.

I will say, from a business perspective, the OGL would probably help them reclaim lost market share. I like what I've seen about 5th edition so far. However, do I like what I've seen enough to buy three $50 rulebooks... that's pretty pricey. Picking the core rules up at $20 a pop in PDF, that's acceptable. Starting to play with just OGL wiki's, well that makes it a pretty easy sell to any group.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Wizard's seems to recognize the threat Pathfinder has become.

Maybe... If I was in their position I would want as many people on board from the get go as possible. When 3e came out, Green Ronin released the first OGL product at Gencon when the PHB was released if memory serves and I believe Creature Collection came out before the Monster Manual.

Making publishers wait on the license for 4e is what made Paizo go with Pathfinder (and of course making it so different from 3e and segmenting the market didn't help). In any case, it's not like there is a huge 3rd party market for 4e now, but to help turn it around you would think they want a lot of publishers behind the launch to generate buzz. It just seems so counter intuitive to me.

We were thinking about doing some sort of anniversary version of Denizens of Avadnu and statting it for both Pathfinder and D&D Next. Guess I'll just keep that on the back burner for now and see what happens.

 

[Mistwell]

You would have thought they would have wanted publisher support right out of the gate. Sounds like the whole 4e GSL thing all over again. Disappointing...

We do know there is publisher support right out of the gate. As I said, two publishers confirmed they are working on stuff for it, and almost certainly others are simply keeping quiet due to NDAs. We don't know officially if those two publishers who let it slip about their prior conversations are proceeding through OGL, or a specific license, but both said they're working on stuff to come out simultaneous with the final rules.

Maybe you should contact WOTC, as a publisher, and ask if there is some license you can acquire if you are willing to sign an NDA about it?

 

[JVisgaitis]

We do know there is publisher support right out of the gate. As I said, two publishers confirmed they are working on stuff for it, and almost certainly others are simply keeping quiet due to NDAs. We don't know officially if those two publishers who let it slip about their prior conversations are proceeding through OGL, or a specific license, but both said they're working on stuff to come out simultaneous with the final rules.

Gotcha. My bad. Which publishers?

 

[Morrus]

There's some info about Gale Force 9 DDN products on the news page today.

 

[fjw70]

We do know there is publisher support right out of the gate. As I said, two publishers confirmed they are working on stuff for it, and almost certainly others are simply keeping quiet due to NDAs. We don't know officially if those two publishers who let it slip about their prior conversations are proceeding through OGL, or a specific license, but both said they're working on stuff to come out simultaneous with the final rules.

Who let slip they are working on stuff? I hadn't heard that.

 

[Warskull]

Maybe... If I was in their position I would want as many people on board from the get go as possible. When 3e came out, Green Ronin released the first OGL product at Gencon when the PHB was released if memory serves and I believe Creature Collection came out before the Monster Manual.

Making publishers wait on the license for 4e is what made Paizo go with Pathfinder (and of course making it so different from 3e and segmenting the market didn't help). In any case, it's not like there is a huge 3rd party market for 4e now, but to help turn it around you would think they want a lot of publishers behind the launch to generate buzz. It just seems so counter intuitive to me.

We were thinking about doing some sort of anniversary version of Denizens of Avadnu and statting it for both Pathfinder and D&D Next. Guess I'll just keep that on the back burner for now and see what happens.

It is kind of interesting how Wizards effectively created their biggest threat by giving 3rd party publishers the cold shoulder with 4th edition. Paizo very effectively capitalized on the dissatisfied 3.5 crowd.

Wizards doesn't even need to go all in with the OGL, just having the core rulebooks being OGL could be a strong boost. Making Next as cheap and available as possible is a solid strategy. It is pretty similar to the strategy many F2P video games used. Get a huge player base with a cheap (or free) game early on. The playerbase perpetuates itself. Then monetize them later for a whole lot more money. We know players will buy prestige class books forever. Adventures are more work, but still fairly popular.

More gamers means more people to buy content. More 3rd party support means more content, which in turn makes your game seem popular. That makes even more gamers take notice.

The problem is that Wizards is a big company. Smaller companies are gamers making games for gamers. Sure they want to make money, but they also want to put out good products and use that money they make to produce more high quality content. The desire to make money is mixed with the desire to make good games. Up top at Wizards it turns corporate and once big corporations get involved that attitude shifts towards "we make this game so we can make tons of money." Making less money now so you can make more money later with a heathier product is a hard sell.

 

[fjw70]

There's some info about Gale Force 9 DDN products on the news page today.

Thanks. I need to start reading the news on this site.