D&D 5E L&L for 6/2

[Dausuul]

Now that is funny becuse I WANT wotc to be a gate keeps to stop bad products and disincentive 3pp who do not care to edit...

If Mongoose wants to "trust each author" and just runn the books through a spell check then maybe mongoose shouldn't be allowed to put there stuff next to play tested and edited work

You make it sound like Mongoose is sneaking into gaming stores in the dead of night to put crappy products on the shelves. If the owner of the game store wants to sell Mongoose stuff, that's his or her decision. Same goes for online stores.

Wizards of the Coast can and should have tight standards for what they themselves publish, and for what they put their stamp of approval on. They should not, however, be in the business of policing the entire third-party market. I can well understand only wanting to buy vetted products of professional quality, but all you have to do for that is stick to the publishers you know and trust. Some folks are more adventurous, and those folks should be allowed the freedom to explore. Sometimes they come back with things the rest of us might never have found.

And given how often "vetted product of professional quality" turns out to mean "boring hackfest in a shiny cover," it ill behooves WotC to get too high-handed with the amateur division. I've heard their adventure quality has improved a lot since the early 4E days, but as far as I'm concerned, they've got a ways to go yet before they rehabilitate their reputation on that front. Don't even get me started on their electronic offerings.

 

[Cybit]

You make it sound like Mongoose is sneaking into gaming stores in the dead of night to put crappy products on the shelves. If the owner of the game store wants to sell Mongoose stuff, that's his or her decision. Same goes for online stores.

Wizards of the Coast can and should have tight standards for what they themselves publish, and for what they put their stamp of approval on. They should not, however, be in the business of policing the entire third-party market. If you only want to buy vetted products of known quality, then all you have to do is stick to the publishers you know and trust. Some folks are more adventurous, and those folks should be allowed the freedom to explore. Sometimes they come back with things the rest of us might never have found.

This is a debate that goes far beyond just RPGs; Apple & Google (as referenced previously) are themselves on the opposite sides of this debate. Playing 3E as long as I did, I'm a fan of very basic curation; it is too tempting for a publisher to go for straight power creep in order to sell books, which then puts an undue burden on the DM & the players to not go with those options.

That said, I'm guessing it's just honestly going to be an online store for people to post things. It would be too costly to curate everything. But what I think the cool part will be is that it will give people a single place to look rather than trying to just find things along the internet.

 

[Dausuul]

This is a debate that goes far beyond just RPGs; Apple & Google (as referenced previously) are themselves on the opposite sides of this debate. Playing 3E as long as I did, I'm a fan of very basic curation; it is too tempting for a publisher to go for straight power creep in order to sell books, which then puts an undue burden on the DM & the players to not go with those options.

"Power creep" goes way beyond basic curation. You have to really engage with a sourcebook in depth to know if it's got power creep going on. "Basic curation" would mean "Do a spell check, search for a list of words like 'Drizzt' that would indicate unauthorized use of Wizards IP, and no Books of Erotic Fantasy."

Come to think of it, even a spell check would be going beyond basic curation. Given that D&D has a long tradition of giving oddball names to people and places, spell checking a typical adventure would result in a blizzard of false positives. Someone would have to weed them out by hand.

That said, I'm guessing it's just honestly going to be an online store for people to post things. It would be too costly to curate everything.

Quite likely. I'm hoping that lack of money will force WotC to take a hands-off approach.

 

[Cybit]

"Power creep" goes way beyond basic curation. You have to really engage with a sourcebook in depth to know if it's got power creep going on. "Basic curation" would mean "Do a spell check, search for a list of words like 'Drizzt' that would indicate unauthorized use of Wizards IP, and no Books of Erotic Fantasy."


Quite likely. I'm hoping that lack of money will force WotC to take a hands-off approach.

I'm guessing that they will make the new terms such that a company couldn't pull a Pathfinder 2.0 (IE, release a game that is just a modification of their game and call it a whole new game), but the trade-off will be that the product will much easier to find in a single stop shop. For almost everyone making content; this is a much better trade off - most people aren't going to try to create D&D 5.25E and try to sell it.

Power Creep will probably be easier to spot in this edition because the temptation to add numerical bonuses will drive most designers down that road for power creep. Then again, I'm fairly disappointed with Paizo for what I feel is unadulterated power creep (ACG playtest, Gunslinger), so maybe I should be more worried about Wizards created power creep than anything else.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You make it sound like Mongoose is sneaking into gaming stores in the dead of night to put crappy products on the shelves. If the owner of the game store wants to sell Mongoose stuff, that's his or her decision. Same goes for online stores.

so instead of addressing a real example you make up some fake crazy arguementa of people sneaking things in... What a great idea


I should argue about rifts fan policy it has as much to do with this as your mongoose ninjas

Wizards of the Coast can and should have tight standards for what they themselves publish, and for what they put their stamp of approval on. They should not, however, be in the business of policing the entire third-party market. I can well understand only wanting to buy vetted products of professional quality, but all you have to do for that is stick to the publishers you know and trust. Some folks are more adventurous, and those folks should be allowed the freedom to explore. Sometimes they come back with things the rest of us might never have found.

And given how often "vetted product of professional quality" turns out to mean "boring hackfest in a shiny cover," it ill behooves WotC to get too high-handed with the amateur division. I've heard their adventure quality has improved a lot since the early 4E days, but as far as I'm concerned, they've got a ways to go yet before they rehabilitate their reputation on that front. Don't even get me started on their electronic offerings.

Wotc owns D&D of course they get to say if you can play in ther pool...

 

[sidonunspa]

so instead of addressing a real example you make up some fake crazy arguementa of people sneaking things in... What a great idea


I should argue about rifts fan policy it has as much to do with this as your mongoose ninjas


Wotc owns D&D of course they get to say if you can play in ther pool...

Except, thanks to the OGL we can reverse engineer most of 5e...

if the user agreement is too closed I expect to see a Next20 (n20) system appear within a few months

with the exception of a few mechanics (Advantage/Disadvantage... which can be re-worded to work like the luck domain, this the mechanics are already there)

so far, I don't see anything 100% original enough (Attributes as Saves.. see Castles & Crusades... they did it first) to stop someone from making a n20 system

 

[Lalato]

Except, thanks to the OGL we can reverse engineer most of 5e...

if the user agreement is too closed I expect to see a Next20 (n20) system appear within a few months

with the exception of a few mechanics (Advantage/Disadvantage... which can be re-worded to work like the luck domain, this the mechanics are already there)

so far, I don't see anything 100% original enough (Attributes as Saves.. see Castles & Crusades... they did it first) to stop someone from making a n20 system

I'll take that bet. A few months to create 5e using the OGL? How much skin you want to put down on this? What odds are you giving? I'm serious. I want to take your money, because I want to buy the 5e books with it.

 

[Dausuul]

so instead of addressing a real example you make up some fake crazy arguementa of people sneaking things in...

You said: "If Mongoose wants to 'trust each author' and just runn the books through a spell check then maybe mongoose shouldn't be allowed to put there stuff next to play tested and edited work." This is absurd, and I was highlighting that absurdity. Mongoose doesn't "put" their stuff anywhere. They sell their stuff to folks who buy it.

Nobody's forcing anybody to sell Mongoose's books. If you don't like Mongoose stuff, don't buy it. If game stores stock Mongoose stuff, then either they will find people who do want to buy it, or they will find themselves with a lot of unsold inventory and learn better. Either way, Mongoose can survive or die on its own merits without Wizards having to play gatekeeper.

Wotc owns D&D of course they get to say if you can play in ther pool...

No, they don't. Legally speaking, as long as you don't infringe their trademarks or directly copy their books, they have very little say in who gets to play in the D&D pool. They can push people out by threatening lawsuits, and folks will back down because they can't afford the legal costs. But a company which is savvy about IP law and not afraid of a court battle can publish content for use with Dungeons and Dragons, and there isn't a darn thing Wizards can do about it.

As I posted in another thread, Kenzer & Company put out the 4E "Kingdoms of Kalamar" sourcebook with "For use with Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons" right on the cover. They didn't sign the GSL. They didn't even use the OGL. If it were any other company, Wizards might have tried to scare them off with a cease and desist. But Dave Kenzer is a lawyer specializing in copyright law; Wizards knew he wouldn't shy away from facing them in court, and they also knew that in a courtroom, they'd lose, because KenzerCo had every right to publish "Kingdoms."

Of course, most 3PPs don't have a copyright lawyer for a president. The OGL is immensely valuable, not because it gives you the legal right to publish D&D-compatible material--you had that before--but because it establishes a clear set of guidelines for non-experts to publish under without fear of bullying from Hasbro lawyers. But bullying is all it is. In a world where court and legal costs didn't come into play, the question of whether 5E had an OGL or not would be largely irrelevant.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Except, thanks to the OGL we can reverse engineer most of 5e...

if the user agreement is too closed I expect to see a Next20 (n20) system appear within a few months

with the exception of a few mechanics (Advantage/Disadvantage... which can be re-worded to work like the luck domain, this the mechanics are already there)

so far, I don't see anything 100% original enough (Attributes as Saves.. see Castles & Crusades... they did it first) to stop someone from making a n20 system

I would love to see the look on the jusges face when I lawyer argues "we didn't sign this new cintract becuse we felt we could weasel this old one from 6-10 years ago...

Yea hope you have GOOD lawyers

 

[GX.Sigma]

I'm guessing that they will make the new terms such that a company couldn't pull a Pathfinder 2.0 (IE, release a game that is just a modification of their game and call it a whole new game)

But that already happened. Unless they have a time machine, they can't stop it from happening again. Nothing is stopping Paizo from creating a literal Pathfinder 2.0 with the same goals as (and, not-so-coincidentally, compatibility with) D&D5. If that demand is out there, you bet they'll do it.

Of course, I'm not saying that's not their rationale. Publishers seem to be idiots like that. Remember DRM on video games? Remember unskippable menus on DVDs? "Oh no, people are stealing our product! Let's implement features that only serve to make the product less valuable for legitimate buyers, and which the pirates can effortlessly get around!"