Is Pathfinder basically a "cloned" D&D 3.0/3.5?

[Ralif Redhammer]

A distinct possibility, at one point. One wonders what would've happened if TSR had folded and Wizards hadn't taken up the torch.

I'm sure I'd heard that one reason Dancey sited for wanting to go Open Source was that if WotC ever folded or the D&D IP ever otherwise ended up in some un-useable legal limbo, the game could continue to be supported.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When I first read the Pathfinder core rulebook, I’ll agree that it felt like they just took 3e, polished it up a bit, and repackaged it. Still, it's absolutely compliant with the OGL, which probably is the enduring legacy of 3e.

But over the years, it’s definitely gotten more and more of its own vibe, though.

What I wonder is whether Pathfinder would’ve succeeded like it did if 4e hadn’t been so, well, so 4e…

Yeah, Pathfinder took off because 3.x was popular and WOTC abandoned it.

 

[Balesir]

Yeah, Pathfinder took off because 3.x was popular and WOTC abandoned it.

I agree, and I would further say that I think 4E was less popular than it would have been had it been released under the OGL/d20 license. I think some of the marketing and other business decisions around 4E were warped in ways that made it less popular by the strict avoidance of the OGL.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I agree, and I would further say that I think 4E was less popular than it would have been had it been released under the OGL/d20 license.

Sure, it'd've gotten 3pp support, and the impetus for Paizo to go 'all in' with Pathfinder wouldn't have been there. It'd've made it hard on 5e, though, since fewer 4e fans'd be taking it seriously if they had an alternative... (much as 3.5 fans aren't exactly abandoning PF for 5e).

So, in that sense, for WotC as a business, you could see the OGL as a mistake that acts like an anchor on the brand.

 

[pemerton]

And the absolute genius of the OGL was that by its nature, it could not be rescinded.

The licence provides for termination if a party breaches its terms (clause 13).

There is also nothing stopping WotC from rescinding its designation of the SRDs as OGC. That would not affect existing licensees, who already enjoy a perpetual licence (clause 4), but would prevent new licensees in respect of the WotC SRDs emerging.

Because there are many existing licensees who have already republished the whole of the SRD, though, such a move from WotC would have little practical consequence. Would-be new licensees could enter into the OGL with one of those other publishers instead.

 

[ccs]

Am I am in the tiny minority that sees Pathfinder as a very "sneaky" (though overtly) ripoff of D&D? In my humble opinion, I see it as nothing more than an exploitation of the OGL in that they created a game by putting a new name on it. What did they invent? What is unique to Pathfinder that makes it anything other than a well executed clone of D&D 3.0/3.5? I like the look and feel of a lot of what they produce but I can't bring myself to buy a single product. I am also in the minority that doesn't steal movies or music... BLUF: I think Pathfinder is akin to pirating intellectual property. They did it well, but they exploited bad practices by WOTC, fair game or stealing?

It's not pirating if you've got a license to do it.

As for who gets cursed in the WoTC/Hasbro halls for the OGL? Probably the guy who failed to point out (or point out strongly enough) the possible results of implementing it.

 

[Marshall Gatten]

Personally, I simply got tired of WotC releasing a new version every time they wanted to rifle through my wallet. When I heard that Paizo had committed to remaining compatible with their first version and never forcing people to replace their entire library if they wanted to remain current, that's all I needed. I bought 4.0, but have not yet read it. It sits gathering dust in a proud act of geeky defiance. I refuse to open it. (Not that WotC will ever notice that. But damned if I'm ever going to buy a subsequent version if there exists a prior version on my bookshelf I've never read.) Paizo has received over a thousand of my dollars since my last WotC purchase.

That Paizo's move was completely legal and completely ethical and completely above-board and completely in compliance with the original intent of OGL is all I need. I don't need to make up imagined slights or sneaks. They fixed the one thing that WotC will never fix: Obsolescence.

 

[Mecheon]

I agree, and I would further say that I think 4E was less popular than it would have been had it been released under the OGL/d20 license. I think some of the marketing and other business decisions around 4E were warped in ways that made it less popular by the strict avoidance of the OGL.

It was an inevitable change, though. They wanted to get away from that whole thing and change it. See: The gap from 2E to 3E, which is to say, the exact same change that wasn't as big due to the lack of an Internet to have flame wars over. "Another 3.5E gaff" was never on the books, especially with a lot of its development attempting to make it a lot more open and open to walk-up things like WotC's cash-cow MtG, as opposed to 3.5E, AKA: "The second worst RPG to start with"

Hindsight being 50/50, if WotC had handled the changeover nicer and not basically left Green Rhonin and Paizo out in the cold, things would have been a lot different

As for Ryan Darcy being cursed anywhere and tricking people, that's the guys who run EVE Online and quite possibly anyone involved with Paizo who thought Pathfinder Online would succeed. They have a lot of reasons to curse his name.

 

[delericho]

It was an inevitable change, though. They wanted to get away from that whole thing and change it.

Some of it was inevitable, but not all. There was at least some effort put in to try to block an OGL "4e clone" from being a possibility. Just how much of that would have been done anyway is open to debate, of course.

Hindsight being 50/50, if WotC had handled the changeover nicer and not basically left Green Rhonin and Paizo out in the cold, things would have been a lot different

True. Though it's worth considering that they wouldn't necessarily have turned out better - it's quite likely we wouldn't now have 5e (and certainly not in its current form) had 4e done a bit better and/or Pathfinder not shown that there was still a market out there.

It's been a bumpy road, but it's brought us to a good place (IMO). Taking a different road may have given a smoother journey, but we don't know the destination.

 

[Celebrim]

As for Ryan Darcy being cursed anywhere and tricking people, that's the guys who run EVE Online and quite possibly anyone involved with Paizo who thought Pathfinder Online would succeed. They have a lot of reasons to curse his name.

There have been tons of people over the years that bought into the idea that it would be a good idea to create a MMORPG. How many MMORPGs have been introduced over the years only to fail rather spectacularly in short order because it turned out there wasn't a huge untapped demand for that sort of gameplay? Do we know Ryan was the principal guy that pitched the idea, or was he just brought in because someone high up wanted to jump on the WoW bandwagon because "Look at their revenue stream!".

I think at this point people are beginning to realize that just because something worked once, doesn't mean it will work twice. MMORPGs are particularly vulnerable to market glut, and its hard to imagine a game design with a higher initial cost of development. Until someone comes up with an MMORPG idea that is revolutionary instead of evolutionary, it's something no one should be trying. Practically every MMORPG that failed shares this in common: "In essence, it's a reskinned World of Warcraft." EVE succeeded to a certain extent because that isn't true, but now EVE holds that niche and anything that is a reskinned EVE probably won't succeed until EVE's gone.