Is the Split a Bad Thing?

[Desdichado]

My question is, is this a bad thing?

Depends on who you are. For WotC? Yeah, it's a bad thing. For customers in general, who now have more options to choose from? No, not at all.

For that matter, is it really a unique thing? During most of D&D's early first two decades, there were two games that bore the name D&D, and I don't know how many settings in print at peak diversity. Arguably, the fanbase has always been fairly substantially split, even if TSR was getting the revenue from all those sales anyway.

 

[El Mahdi]

...did we honestly have unity under the d20 system?

I think the answer here is Yes and No (just to muddle things up a bit).

I think we did have unity in that the OGL accomplished, at least intially, what Mr. Dancy intended: Unify the market (mostly) under a common mechanical system so that everyone could share the market, rather than continue to divide it (and by divide I mean between different publishers, and within publishers with self-competing products).

But then...Yeah, it most definitely caused even more division IMO. I think that for the health of the market, the OGL was too open...though I'm glad it exists so that Dancy's and Adkinson's other reason for the OGL could be realised: that there would always be a version of D&D freely available to the world at large, despite what may happen to the brand or it's current publisher.

Additionally, again, if we had unity, why did so many publishers abandon 3e/3.5?

I don't think it was solely lack of unity that caused an abandonment of D20 publishing, I think it was just an inability to make money off of it anymore due to the normal life cycle of game system/products - though the eventual diffusion (lack of unity) of the D20 system through so many different products and publishers is a major factor in that - just not the only one.

Did 4e cause the split or simply highlight what had already happened?

I don't thin 4E caused the split...I think it caused a split. I don't think there's been any one single split, but many, many splits. And let's face it, the customer base has always been split. It's just that in the earlier history of RPG's there were less alternatives to choose from, and less vocabulary to put voice to the differences in playstyles. Inherently, I think RPG fans/customers are a very disparate lot - but I don't think that factor, in and of itself, spells doom for the hobby. If acknowledged and worked with (rather than ignoring it), it can be a strength to the industry.

IMO though, I do agree that there were splits long before 4E came along. 4E's split was simply that it mostly focused on one segment of the customer base, and in the vacuum of products at the time, 4E is what took the blame (among other reasons). Nothing against 4E. I think it's a good game. However, it is focused predominantly on only a portion of the playstyles espoused by the customer/fan base.

I think a game that has a common (as possible) base system, with modular systems that can be plugged on to make it the game each group wants, won't necessarily unify or heal the fan/customer base, but I think it definitely has the potential to heal and unify the market. But I say potential because there's another significant factor I feel must be addressed: The GSL.

Overall, I don't think the GSL was entirely bad. Closing it up a bit as they did, would have avoided the diffusion of the system that occured under the OGL. But what killed the GSL wasn't it's lack of full openness (like the OGL), but it's poison pill clauses for publishers (revocation at any time, destruction of wharehouse product if WotC demands it, etc.). Take the poison pill clauses out, and for the most part I think it's good to go. Then it can again do what it was supposed to do, open the system up to 3pp to do what they do best (and what WotC struggles with): Adventures, Campaigns, and Supplements. And with the GSL, diffusion and fragmentation through derivative systems is probably much less likely.

 

[darkwing]

The best thing I can say about D&D Next is it's made me want to look at different RPG systems and alternatives to 20 sided dice. This is probably a good thing.

 

[Daztur]

Y'know, that's a point Aldarc. If everyone was happy under the 3e umbrella, why did we have such vocal fans of alternative d20 systems. Whether True 20, M&M, or the bajillion other variants, did we honestly have unity under the d20 system?

Additionally, again, if we had unity, why did so many publishers abandon 3e/3.5? Even before 4e was announced, we were down to three (including Paizo and obviously WOTC), maybe 4 print publishers doing 3.5 D&D material with any regularity. Most of the big guys had long moved on - Mongoose, AEG, White Wolf (with it's Sword and Sorcery line), and most others were either no longer doing any 3.5 D&D stuff, or were only dipping a toe in from time to time.

Did 4e cause the split or simply highlight what had already happened?

I think they learned their lesson from the 3 -> 3.5 transition. If you put out stuff that supports the curren version of D&D you can get the rug pulled out under you at any moment by an edition change, which is exactly what happened to a LOT of third party supplement publishers when 3.5ed was announced. It was a lot safer to branch out into d20 systems that were outside of the 3.5ed umbrella so that WotC couldn't make your back catalogue obsolete whenever they want.

 

[prosfilaes]

Growth in number of players isn't the only thing that is "good" for a particular game or hobby. There's the concept of hybrid vigor to consider - having multiple ways of doing things tends to drive creativity, and that is good for what is, at its root, a creative endeavor.

I don't really see what we have now as all that vigorous. My impression is that we have Pathfinder and D&D 4 and not much viable alternative. There's no Rolemaster, GURPS seems mostly dead, Hero seems pretty quiescent, Rifts is sort of plodding along but hardly innovating. Instead we have two different D&Ds.

 

[darkwing]

I don't really see what we have now as all that vigorous. My impression is that we have Pathfinder and D&D 4 and not much viable alternative. There's no Rolemaster, GURPS seems mostly dead, Hero seems pretty quiescent, Rifts is sort of plodding along but hardly innovating. Instead we have two different D&Ds.

I don't know if it's actually a good game or not, but Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is newish and innovating. The burning wheel games seem pretty popular. I hear many people talk about Fate. Are all of these terrible games?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Depends on who you are. For WotC? Yeah, it's a bad thing. For customers in general, who now have more options to choose from? No, not at all.

For that matter, is it really a unique thing? During most of D&D's early first two decades, there were two games that bore the name D&D, and I don't know how many settings in print at peak diversity. Arguably, the fanbase has always been fairly substantially split, even if TSR was getting the revenue from all those sales anyway.

I'm not even sure it is a bad thing for WotC. In the short-term? Sure. But consider some of the likely alternatives. Say that the Dancy idea for d20, that it would be a generic platform that would dominate the market in all of its various incarnations, worked as they planned for a good while. Anything that doesn't fit inside that umbrella is rapidly stifled.

When the fall comes from something that big and hidebound, the company may not recover. Look at Kodak. There digital products and services were lousy because they simply couldn't conceive that Canon and other companies could make an end run around their business. IBM is a shell of what it once was--and its only real strength is in consulting, which is practically a new business. Half the things that killed them were done by former employees that couldn't get a hearing on a new idea. So they left and started their own companies.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. For that to work, though, the blow has to fall before it's wound up enough to kill you.

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, but in that case, WotC caused the split in the first place by creating the OGL. If they hadn't done that, I seriously doubt we'd see anything like Pathfinder challenging D&D's percieved perch at the top of the market.

 

[boredgremlin]

For me the split was a good thing. People who like 3e style get to play 3e. People who like 4e style got to go do their thing and we were no longer stuck at the same table arguing because we really wanted to be playing different games.

So even though its a little tougher to fill out a group the people you do eventually find are more likely to gell well with the game your running. To me the good in that outweighs the bad.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't really see what we have now as all that vigorous. My impression is that we have Pathfinder and D&D 4 and not much viable alternative. There's no Rolemaster, GURPS seems mostly dead, Hero seems pretty quiescent, Rifts is sort of plodding along but hardly innovating. Instead we have two different D&Ds.

There are plenty of viable alternatives. Dragon Age, dark heresy and shadow run continue to sell well. Where I game Savage Worlds, lamentations of the flame princess and RQ remain popular. Plus people are constantly playing new games like Shard.

Savage worlds definitely provides a different way to do things. LotFP offers many unique fixes to old school D&D. Dragon Age has some interesting mechanics and Shard has a highly unusual setting.