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

[Umbran]

As I see it, there was no practical benefit to WotC withdrawing the magazine license from Paizo. I'm sure they thought there was, but I question if whatever reasoning they were working under turned out to be valid.

Yes, but hindsight is 20/20, and all that. Now, we can look back and say there was no practical benefit. That there was no such benefit would have been less obvious to those inside WotC at the time. I agree with delericho - it seems like there was a plan, but it just didn't turn out as well as they'd have liked.

There is a clear truth in business - you aren't going to make gains if you don't take risks.

 

[darjr]

I'm not sure I agree with your reasoning, here. Bringing the magazines "home" didn't give them anything they didn't already have to build the DDI around. The magazines had nothing to do with the character creator or monster builder, for example. Likewise, simply adding new original material and adventures could have been done without withdrawing the magazines - WotC had already been doing that for years with web articles during the 3.X era anyway.

Likewise, Paizo was the one generating the magazines' content, so there was no huge loss for WotC in leaving the magazines on the newsstands; that's the whole point of licensing them out.

As I see it, there was no practical benefit to WotC withdrawing the magazine license from Paizo. I'm sure they thought there was, but I question if whatever reasoning they were working under turned out to be valid.

It wasn't the magazines, it was the subscription base. It wasn't the creators and writers of the magazine, it was the customer base. I think they thought that they'd get an instant customer base.

 

[darjr]

Unfortunately, it didn't exactly work out like that, partly due to residual anger from fans of the Paizo-era magazines, partly because the customer base for print and digital products don't overlap perfectly, and partly because Paizo themselves did a much better job of converting those old customers.

Yea, I've read that Paizo knew they could survive the moment when a large number of subscribers converted over to the adventure paths. The 3.5 adventure paths. I don't remember, but I think this was even before they knew themselves if they were doing Pathfinder.

 

[darjr]

There is a clear truth in business - you aren't going to make gains if you don't take risks.

So true. However I think that knowing the kind of customer base they have, where change in and of itself can be a problem, it wasn't wise to change so much about the magazine, so much that affected so many, presumably happy, customers.

 

[Umbran]

However I think that knowing the kind of customer base they have, where change in and of itself can be a problem....

I think that, however, is part of the hindsigh. *Now* we know that the customer base has a major problem with change. It is not clear to me that WotC should have thought so at the time they had to make their business decisions. The customer base seemed to make the transition to 3e without major issue - heck, it grew pretty solidly! 3.5e was also fairly smooth.

It is the 21st century, the internet age. It wouldn't have surprised me if WotC (if only implicitly) thought, "Hey, this is an era where folks expect movement, expect change, and adapt!" Sure, there'd be some grumbling, but I am not sure they had solid reason to know the audience would be quite as reactionary as it was.

 

[darjr]

Your' probably correct. I wasn't around for 3.0 or the 3.5 transition, however looking back, before 4e, it looked like there was a lot of hew and cry at 3.5.

 

[Warskull]

I think that, however, is part of the hindsigh. *Now* we know that the customer base has a major problem with change. It is not clear to me that WotC should have thought so at the time they had to make their business decisions. The customer base seemed to make the transition to 3e without major issue - heck, it grew pretty solidly! 3.5e was also fairly smooth.

It is the 21st century, the internet age. It wouldn't have surprised me if WotC (if only implicitly) thought, "Hey, this is an era where folks expect movement, expect change, and adapt!" Sure, there'd be some grumbling, but I am not sure they had solid reason to know the audience would be quite as reactionary as it was.

I think defining the customer base as "having issues with change" is unfair. As you mentioned the transitions before 4th edition all went very smoothly. The playbase certainly has its edition warring grognard who will scream it isn't Nth edition, therefore it sucks. However, up until 4th edition, people were mostly along for the ride.

A big part of the problem with 4th edition was how much it changed. Everything up until 4th was still clearly Dungeons and Dragons. 4th edition wasn't Dungeons and Dragons as every knew it. It changed massively. It was Dungeons and Dragons 2. It was a completely new game with a new flavor which utilized much of the Dungeons and Dragons setting and IP. It was a big enough change to make people stop and think "do I want what this new game offers?" Not everyone wanted it.

I think what 4th edition symbolizes more than people being afraid of change, is that the IP power of tabletop games is not as strong as some other mediums. With a movie you are only selling them on 2 hours, with a video game usually about 10 hours. With a tabletop RPG is a hobby that takes a huge amount of time up. So the D&D name will only carry you so far. People won't play something purely because it is labeled D&D. That might make them start playing it, but they will eventually gravitate towards what they like.

I guess part of the problem is the grognards always grumble in the past. The lamented the change from Thac0 to AC, but they always came along. So Wizards might have dismissed the grumbling about 4th edition as grognards being grognards.

4th edition being so different is a problem for wizards, because they are trying to shift back towards the feel of earlier versions of D&D. They now have a 3.5 and earlier playerbase and a 4th edition player base. One of those two will probably be unhappy with Next.

Really, thinking about it, maybe the best move would have been forking D&D. Turn 4th edition into spin-off (still called D&D, but with a tag, like D&D:Heroes) while D&D Next would just be "Dungeons and Dragons." Effectively have 4.5 and 5th edition existing simultaneously. If you have to outsource the custodianship of 4th edition to one of the better companies that writes 3rd party material.

 

[darjr]

I don't mean people not liking change in the RPG market as derision. Campaigns can take a while and can span many different editions. Groups can be hard to maintain especially across editions. Any change to a game has to take those two idea into account. Especially D&D. Being resistant to change in that environment isn't a bad thing, it's a way to keep the variables down and just game.

 

[DaveMage]

I don't believe that was the case. It had to do with the fact that Paizo, like all companies, had to plan out their catalogue months in advance, and with no word on if they'd even be allowed to license the new game, they were essentially forced to part ways with WotC and make their own game.

You're both right.

Jason Buhlman (Pathfinder's lead designer) went to D&D XP at the start of 2008 to get a sneak peek at the 4E rules (as everyone who attended did). After that visit, and in combination with no license, Paizo made its decision to stick with 3.5/go Pathfinder.

 

[Mark CMG]

Bringing back the magazine licenses might have been weathered. WotC was recalling ALL of their licenses at the time. Trying to mess with the Open Game License formula that helped make 3.XE such a juggernaut could have been mitigated even without the GSL. WotC's biggest problem, and might still be, their revolving-door-employment business model. The bulk of the talent that WotC pushed out the door are primarily what made Paizo and PF successful, IMO, and there's no real way to right that ship. That isn't to say WotC cannot use other people to make an even better RPG with different talent but not only was the market split on their first attempt to do so post-3.XE but the talent/competition is still out there and now even more seasoned.


As for going back to the OGL, IMO, it could only help them. Unfortunately, slapping an OGL on a finished product wouldn't be as a good way to go as having been OGL right from the start and using the OGC pool to help fix problems that cropped up during playtesting and design. Also, by not using the OGL on the 4.XE line, they largely boxed themselves out of their own previous work, basically labeling it as non-OGC. I think folks who didn't appreciate 4.XE would have been more receptive to bringing forth some of the ideas from 4.XE to 5E if it had been labeled as OGC rather than simply a portion of an edition that half the market rejected. They seemingly have put every design obstacle in their own way with each business decision. The left hand knows what the right is doing and the right keeps flipping the left off.