Love the Game, Hate the Marketing

[BASHMAN]

Don't forget to add Open Gaming License being replaced by the Game System License.

 

[Lord Fyre]

...And you're done. Thanks for stopping by and providing the epic fail of the evening, but now it's time for you to go. Complaining about word usage is the place people go to when they don't have real things to complain about.

You know, that is true.

I don't have real things to complain about with WoTC's Marketing effort.

• They don't want to start the main push to soon, or the buying public will be "tired" of the product before it even comes out.
• They can't put too much "crunch" out there, out of respect for the 3rd Party companies who have paid the licencing fees.
• They can't keep Dragon or Dungeon in print, if their sales would not have otherwise justified the decision.
• Scott Rouse can't wear a puffy shirt, if he doesn't own one.

Need I go on?

 

[The Little Raven]

Don't forget to add Open Gaming License being replaced by the Game System License.

Aw shucks, Wizards actually makes owning their rules a requirement to playing with them.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Aw shucks, Wizards actually makes owning their rules a requirement to playing with them.

Mourn, do you even understand why Ryan Dancey created the OGL in the first place?

Here is an explanation, written by Wizards of The Coast's former Vice President in charge of Roleplaying Games. You know, the guy who made 3E possible.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e


If you take the time to read this, you'll have a proper understanding of why some of us think that the move away from the OGL is bad for everyone, including WoTC.

Or, I suppose you could just keep sniping at people.

Ken

 

[The Little Raven]

Mourn, do you even understand why Ryan Dancey created the OGL in the first place?

Yeah, and seeing how he left two years later, which was 6 years ago, I don't see why his opinion from 8 years ago is important in current WotC affairs. My company doesn't let the policy of a 6-year-removed executive dictate our current goals and directions, and I don't think WotC is silly enough to do the same.

You know, the guy who made 3E possible.

That was Peter Adkinson, who explicitly wanted to save D&D and sent Dancey to do it for him. If it wasn't Dancey, it would have been another guy. Don't confuse the guy who actually put the ball in motion (Adkinson) with the guy he sent to do the job for him (Dancey).

If you take the time to read this, you'll have a proper understanding of why some of us think that the move away from the OGL is bad for everyone, including WoTC.

I understand that you think Dancey's reasons have turned out to be true, but not everyone agrees, including WotC. Dancey's "Skaff theory" has never been proven to be true (that input into the genre eventually becomes output for the market share leader), and his belief that the OGL would drive sales of the core books hasn't been proven to be true either (especially in light of "complete" games that reprint the SRD and don't require the core books, which do nothing to drive their sales). And the "community driven development" idea didn't go anywhere, because 3rd-party companies still relied on closed development, even for things they declared OGC.

As a source of free rules, the OGL/SRD is a success, no doubt. As the source of a movement dedicated to open gaming that draws on the community for continued mechanical development and refinement, not so much.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Mourn, do you even understand why Ryan Dancey created the OGL in the first place?

If you take the time to read this, you'll have a proper understanding of why some of us think that the move away from the OGL is bad for everyone, including WoTC.

This bit is interesting:

The other great effect of Open Gaming should be a rapid, constant improvement in the quality of the rules. With lots of people able to work on them in public, problems with math, with ease of use, of variance from standard forms, etc. should all be improved over time. The great thing about Open Gaming is that it is interactive -- someone figures out a way to make something work better, and everyone who uses that part of the rules is free to incorporate it into their products. Including us. So D&D as a game should benefit from the shared development of all the people who work on the Open Gaming derivative of D&D.

OGL only partially delivered on this, at least in terms of D&D. We got 3.5, but a lot of people fussed about that. I suppose the best evidence of the above part in action is Trued20 (developed externally) and Star Wars Saga edition (developed internally).

Also, I suppose the splat books positively incremented the design. Swift actions, skill tricks, maneuvers, the Warlock's implementation of arcane magic (non-vancian).

In any event, we already know 4E is going to have annual core book releases. And one of the purposes of Gleemax is to foster a place to discuss and improve the game. So it sounds like 4e is very much sticking with at least the quoted part of the OGL's goals.

Why do you say WotC is moving away from the OGL?

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Mourn , that was a well-thought out post. I disagree with you on the OGL, but it's clear that you understand it. I'm sorry about the sniping comment.

Ken

 

[Lord Fyre]

Don't forget to add Open Gaming License being replaced by the Game System License.

Well, actually . . .

When 3rd Edition came out, some good material from other companies came out to support it. But so did an enourmous amount of "crap"

So, it might just be an effort to prevent a huge glut from hitting game stores.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Well, I haven't seen the GSL yet, but they've renamed it due to 'Open' being a misnomer, and it's been said that it will be cast in such a way as to make complete games such as Conan and Spycraft impossible.

I think Dancey was right about the whole 'network externality' thing. And I base that partially on my own experience.

For around 15 years, I and my gaming group didn't play D&D. We played mostly RuneQuest, but we also played Megatraveller, Torg, Ars Magica and a few other games. We quit playing D&D in the mid 80s because we wanted things like skills that just weren't available in D&D prior to 3rd edition.

Because of this, I had basically no exposure to D&D rules. I didn't know what was going on in the world of D&D, and I didn't care, because I wasn't invested in the system. When I looked at 3E, it was originally because I had heard that there was a game that was putting Open Source principles to work (I am a software engineer) rather than hearing about how great its rules were.

But I'm pretty sure that , had I been playing a game based on d20 during all those years, D&D would have always been in my mind, because of the inevitable cross-polination between the games I was playing and D&D.

When I convinced my gaming group to try D&D, it took a really significant effort, because everyone had significant rules mastery in competing systems and didn't really want to switch. If RuneQuest hadn't been essentially a dead game I am not sure we ever would have -- the main argument that won my friends over was that it would be way easier to get players.

Had we already been playing a d20 game, the barrier of entry for playing D&D would have been way, way less.

Ken

This bit is interesting:




OGL only partially delivered on this, at least in terms of D&D. We got 3.5, but a lot of people fussed about that. I suppose the best evidence of the above part in action is Trued20 (developed externally) and Star Wars Saga edition (developed internally).

Also, I suppose the splat books positively incremented the design. Swift actions, skill tricks, maneuvers, the Warlock's implementation of arcane magic (non-vancian).

In any event, we already know 4E is going to have annual core book releases. And one of the purposes of Gleemax is to foster a place to discuss and improve the game. So it sounds like 4e is very much sticking with at least the quoted part of the OGL's goals.

Why do you say WotC is moving away from the OGL?

 

[Vayden]

And don't forget that the OGL gave us Iron Heroes - many of the ideas in 4E come from that. Also, there is a significant proven talent pool WotC can draw on in hiring from people working on OGL D20 products. I'm not saying the OGL needs to continue exactly as it is, but I wouldn't call it a failure by any means.