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

[Henry]

I agree with you, obviously, but do let's bear in mind that 90% of this is speculation. It's based on a few very vague posts from the WotC crew, none of which said anything about curating stuff.

Oh, I know, but it can be hard not to read previous patterns reasserting themselves yet again into the way this info is dropping out. I would be quite happy if I'm wrong and the history of 2e, 3.5 and 4e does not repeat itself.

 

[pemerton]

WotC wants my money before revealing whether or not the product they're offering will be what I want it to be.

They're giving you the product for free.

 

[God]

The Basic game is hardly the end-all, be-all of D&d. It's a very nice preview of the core mechanics. I like the mechanics. My concern is about whether the game will be open. WotC is refusing to reveal that aspect of the game until some months after the full product goes on sale.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The Basic game is hardly the end-all, be-all of D&d. It's a very nice preview of the core mechanics. I like the mechanics. My concern is about whether the game will be open. WotC is refusing to reveal that aspect of the game until some months after the full product goes on sale.

So wait a minute...

So Dungeons and Dragons at its core means little to you. Even getting it for free generates nothing more than a 'meh'. All that really matters to you is the ability to give your money to some other company rather than WotC. Which is kind of amazing, considering you don't even HAVE to give WotC any money.

Why are you even bothering with D&D in the first place then? If your only concern is being able to give your money to get rules and supplements from any company other than WotC... even when WotC isn't even asking for your money to play their game and the game itself seems to matter very little to you... could there be a bigger waste of your time?

If you don't really care about D&D unless you can give your money to a company that isn't the one that is producing D&D... then don't play D&D. Play a game that's produced by the company you want to give your money to. Eliminate the middleman. That seems to make the most sense.

 

[Cyberen]

I think some people lurking (or even posting !) here have a *professional* interest in the 3pp program set up by wotc.
I don't, and I think wotc is hitting all the right buttons

 

[Thaumaturge]

Bolding: You released information about what an open game license or licensing for D&D may look like, and you're looking at releasing that fully next year?

Mearls: From our timeline we're looking at early next year.

Bolding: What's the kernel of an idea on what an OGL or licensing may look like?

Mearls: I don't want to go into too much detail because a lot of things are up in the air, but I will say that when 3rd Edition launched in 2000 there was this land rush mentality, and I think it makes sense from a business perspective. If you're a third party publisher you want to make sure you're the first to the market. Well, in their rush, you end up with people designing their adventure without the DMG. I was one of those guys. We want all the resources available, we want all the materials available, we want people to have been playing the game. We also want the audience to be informed.

I'll use the magic as an example - we want the audience to be informed and know that if anyone does anything that lets you have two concentration spells at once they've broken the game. You can't have cloudkill and hold person at the same time. Now, in your home game, you can do whatever you want. We just want everyone to know how the game works and want everyone to know what's out there in the system and what we learned from playtests before we turn everything loose.

In this exchange from today's escapist article, Mearls definitely discusses third party publishers. And he discusses wanting both the third party publishers and the customers to be informed. If we take him at his word and not assume he's lying or being tricksy, it looks like they want to let third parties participate, but they want to let publishers all start once the full thing is out and everyone has had a chance to digest the core rules.

That seems perfectly reasonable.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Cybit]

The Basic game is hardly the end-all, be-all of D&d. It's a very nice preview of the core mechanics. I like the mechanics. My concern is about whether the game will be open. WotC is refusing to reveal that aspect of the game until some months after the full product goes on sale.

I didn't know you happened to know what the Basic rules were already! ;-)

 

[Dausuul]

In this exchange from today's escapist article, Mearls definitely discusses third party publishers. And he discusses wanting both the third party publishers and the customers to be informed. If we take him at his word and not assume he's lying or being tricksy, it looks like they want to let third parties participate, but they want to let publishers all start once the full thing is out and everyone has had a chance to digest the core rules.

That seems perfectly reasonable.

Thaumaturge.

It's certainly more reassuring than the original L&L, which didn't even mention third-party publishers. He still dodges the question of what kind of program they're looking at implementing (OGL? GSL? In between? App store? Something else entirely?), but I suppose that's to be expected. If the details remain under discussion at WotC, he's probably under strict orders not to say anything that could possibly be construed as committing WotC to anything.

I remain dubious, but that article makes it at least plausible that part of the game might be open content. I wouldn't be surprised if they choose the OGL route with the Basic game, since that's free to download anyway, and keep the rest under a more GSL-like license.

 

[pemerton]

My concern is about whether the game will be open. WotC is refusing to reveal that aspect of the game until some months after the full product goes on sale.

I'm disappointed that WotC is so blatantly delaying the "OGL /no OGL" reveal until so long after the release window.

<snip>

I think I'll hold onto my money until WotC is more transparent about their plans. Which is, as I said, disappointing.

I'm still not seeing what the issue is.

For whatever reason, you don't want to pay for rulebooks until you know what WotC's licensing plans are. So, as you say, you will hold of buying them until you know. Problem solved!

How are you any worse off because other people, who don't care about licensing issues, are buying the books while you're still waiting?

 

[Thaumaturge]

I remain dubious, but that article makes it at least plausible that part of the game might be open content. I wouldn't be surprised if they choose the OGL route with the Basic game, since that's free to download anyway, and keep the rest under a more GSL-like license.

Against what I've seen repeated here on EnWorld a few times, I actually would be surprised if the Basic Game was OGL'd. They've continually referred to the monster and DM content in the Basic game as their 'most iconic'. I would be surprised if their 'most iconic' stuff is the stuff they give for others to make with. Much of their most iconic stuff didn't make it into the OGL, for instance.

Thaumaturge.