Mearls' Legends and Lore (or, "All Roads Lead to Rome, Redux")

[pemerton]

I would say that a large source of the problem is that at some point they became rather insular and seemed to lose touch with the fan-base, especially us diehards. As Bryon put it, they focused too much on the many "birds in the bush" and neglected the fewer "birds in hand," who are also the folks that spend many times the amount a casual player does.

<snip>

with a bit of direction and well-placed strategic moves, WotC could make the coming out party of 5E a truly memorable occasion.

Maybe. I don't feel I have enough of a sense of the relevant variables. And I really don't see how they can make Pathfinder go away.

By abandoning 3e, WotC effectively created Pathfinder, and thereby created a situation where many of their fans may never "come home."

I agree with the second half - I think Pathfinder (which is, for all those who didn't start with it but migrated to it from officially branded D&D, 3.x) is here to stay.

I'm less sure about the first half. Why did WotC abandon 3E, and abandon the OGL+SRD model? It's possible that the game designers took control of the business planning division, and decided that all of WotC's corporate weight had to be thrown behind this better new game bringing D&D into touch with Forgist indie design sensibilities. But I think it's more likely that the business planners in WotC had already formed the view that WotC's future depended on breaking free from the OGL+SRD model that 3E was intimately bound up with. That is, I think WotC must have already feared that Pathfinder or something similar was coming into being.

The big tent people seem to be asking the last of the stalwart 4e 3pps to wait outside despite their pleas for assistance

A big part of the issue here seems to be DDI, which is the enemy of 3PP. I see this as a sort of complement to the abandonment of the OGL+SRD model - the GSL obliges 3PP to publish material that is obviously complementary rather than competing, and DDI means that there is, in effect, no prospect of competition in any event.

Nobody is going to avoid buying 4e to buy an AD&D manual, and they are only slightly likely to do so for a 3e manual.

I just cannot conceive that anyone shopping for B4 is postponing a 4e purchase.

I think the concern might be more that those PDFs being available actively supports Pathfinder and the retro-clones, and in that way dilutes support for 4e.

I don't want 4e to be my nemesis, yet I think I am reasonable in estimating that it has become an impediment to what I want.

Perhaps, if what you want is for those old publications to be available for purchase outside the second hand market.

 

[pemerton]

If it doesn't use characters and places from a D&D book it's not a derivative work in the literary sense (like an unauthorized sequel). It it doesn't reproduce text, it's not plagiaristic. Do you think a hypothetical Moocow's Player Handbook, creating a D&D 3e simulator is more like...?

I think a hypothetical Moocow's PHB is probably not infringing. But it probably wouldn't sell unless it included text like the introductory text to OSRIC, which points out how the game is intended as a replication of someone else's work. And this is where I get more doubtful. Again, I'm not enough of an IP lawyer to have a strong view, but I don't see the argument as fanciful. (Again - Clark Peterson, who is by all accounts an experienced commercial lawyer, thinks that OSRIC is infringing despite being published under the OGL.)

the soul of a novel is different the soul of what is essentially an instruction manual.

<snip>

If the table lists a longsword as doing 1d10 damage, it's telling you, "When you hit someone with a longsword, roll a ten-sided die for damage." That idea is not copyrightable, only the specific form of the instructions.

<snip>

Which is basically the same issue as a D&D module, as it does not contain verbatim text of say, the AD&D Player's Handbook.

I think it is key to WotC's conception (not necessarily its true, in-its-heart conception, but its legal conception) of its rulebooks that they are not instruction manuals, but more like works of fiction.

For the classic instruction manual, the real product is the device, and the manual-writers are a necessary cost to the business in order to make the device saleable to customers.

For WotC, there is no business but writing the manuals.

If someone from WotC took an index card, wrote a few terms like it like Armor Class and Hit Points, and said, "We release this index card to the public domain," the world would be a happier place. Instead we have the Give Soul License.

The alternative strategy is for WotC to fight with their last breath over every infringement, hoping that in the 21st century, the legal situation will shift in their favor. Given that much of D&D is itself a pastiche of other copyrighted works, I don't give them good odds on that.

This is the 21st century. The question is not whether IP law will change, but how and when. The ease of information exchange suggests it will be toward greater openness. With the OGL, WotC signalled they were ready to experiment with something new. With the GSL, they retreated back to the reactionary stance of the 1980s.

I don't think WotC will have adopted the GSL for ideological reasons. I think that they saw the consequences of the OGL+SRD model as a commercial threat.

You may be right that IP law will change in the 21st century. I think that the relationship between IP law and what passes now for folk culture is a pretty profound one, and it will be interesting to see how (if at all) that changes. My own view is that it is likely to become more commercial, not less, as time passes.

But I don't think this helps WotC. WotC (as a publishing house) makes its money selling instruction manuals that don't need a machine to run them. If it can't protect those works via IP law, it may be that WotC (as a publishing house) is simply not commercially viable.

Hence, perhaps, the move towards WotC the seller of rights to access privately-controlled online databases.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Maybe. I don't feel I have enough of a sense of the relevant variables. And I really don't see how they can make Pathfinder go away.

Coming in 2013 from Wizards of the Coast:

Classic Dungeons & Dragons: A cleaned up version of OD&D/AD&D/BECMI that probably looks a lot like the 1991 Rules Cyclopedia except without race-as-class. Designed to be an edition where you can use OD&D/AD&D/BECMI/Classic products interchangeably.

Dungeons & Dragons: An updated version of 3.5 that pushes farther than Pathfinder could (particularly focused on fixing the serious problems in play that begin to crop up around 12th level), but without abandoning the core gameplay of D&D from 1974-2008.

Dungeons & Dragons: Battlefields: A full repackaging of the 4th Edition core rules into 1-3 SKUs that remain compatible with the existing 4th Edition supplements.

I'm not saying that's likely. But it would be a pretty effective way for WotC to pretty much immediately re-establish themselves as the core rulebook provider for the OSR and 3.5/Pathfinder brigades.

The next question would be what kind of support WotC would/could give to these games. For starters, IMO, this hypothetical "Classic D&D" would be designed to be an evergreen rulebook with basically no additional support from WotC. Its release would be coupled to putting all the old PDFs back on the market (either directly or as POD products if your corporate HQ really is insane enough to think they're preventing piracy by not selling ebooks), but it would be the functional equivalent of Hasbro's vintage releases of their classic boardgames.

(Why not simply release the original OD&D game? Because, as much as I love those books as a historical document, it would be an embarrassment to offer them for sale as a modern, professional company.)

 

[Beginning of the End]

I have no interest in seeing D&D become a less complex game, and I don't think WotC does either. But clarifying presentation to make that complexity easier to digest is a huge deal, as is lowering the bar to entry and degrading the learning curve.

This is the other thing: WotC should re-embrace the distinction between D&D and AD&D. D&D should be a stripped down system that hums along without a lot of the situational modifiers and bling that has accumulated -- broadly supportive, but minutely detailed.

AD&D is where you can pour in all those extra details.

 

[pawsplay]

I think the concern might be more that those PDFs being available actively supports Pathfinder and the retro-clones, and in that way dilutes support for 4e.

It probably does support Pathfinder and retroclones, but withholding does not, in any way I can discern, support 4e. The people not playing 4e now are obviously not playing by choice, and there is no way to support them via 4e. However, they remain an active and visible part of the D&D community... at this point, they may represent a more culturally salient segment than 4e consumers.

If WotC continue as they have, Pathfinder will no longer simply be a continuation of some version of D&D, but a true rival, and a harbinger of more to come. With or without the OGL. It's not as if the d20 SRD has any really revolutionary concepts in it.

Perhaps the most significant effect OGL has had on the democratization of D&D is to slow down the adoption of Creative Commons and other licenses that are even more open, in the creation of fan-based RPG communities. It may be that the GSL/OGL split is only the first crack in an acceleration toward a post-D&D role-playing world. Truly, anyone can publish.

 

[Mark CMG]

A big part of the issue here seems to be DDI, which is the enemy of 3PP. I see this as a sort of complement to the abandonment of the OGL+SRD model - the GSL obliges 3PP to publish material that is obviously complementary rather than competing, and DDI means that there is, in effect, no prospect of competition in any event.

Agreed. There might be a small handful of 4e 3pps allowed in the big tent but they are definitely kept at the kiddie table by the DDI. Not that anyone is entitled to more, but simply that there are inherent restrictions and limits on their involvement as publishers within the big tent environment.

 

[pemerton]

Coming in 2013 from Wizards of the Coast:

<snip 3 models of D&D>

I'm not saying that's likely. But it would be a pretty effective way for WotC to pretty much immediately re-establish themselves as the core rulebook provider for the OSR and 3.5/Pathfinder brigades.

WotC already gave up on this when they created a 4e that is radically different in certain key respects from 3E and AD&D. Assuming that they are commercially rational actors (which may be a false assumption - it's possible, although in my view unlikely, that the aesthetic preferences of the designers play a significant role in WotC's overall direction) this means that, from their point of view, trying to keep WotC support for 3E alive in an environment where the OGL+SRD will always throw up potential competitors is not worthwhile.

Why would WotC think this? Obviously I don't have their sales data to hand. But I imagine that their concern would be that every 3E book WotC publishes, and every step that WotC takes to promote 3E gaming, is a supplement or a step that supports a competitor (like Pathfinder). In effect, Dancey' "network externalities" idea comes back to bite WotC - they risk becoming the tail to another publishers dog.

4e plus DDI seems like a comprehensive attempt by WotC to create a new market where there is no risk of the sort of competition that the OGL+SRD model has given rise to in the case of 3E.

There might be a small handful of 4e 3pps allowed in the big tent but they are definitely kept at the kiddie table by the DDI. Not that anyone is entitled to more, but simply that there are inherent restrictions and limits on their involvement as publishers within the big tent environment.

Right. The big tent is a notion that might have some relevance to fan communities - "Why can't we all get along?" - but I don't think it has much relevance to the commercial environment of RPG publishing.

Which relates back to DungeonDelver's and RC's suggestions that WotC/Mearls is hypocritical - if one takes the view that the circumstances of the fan communities, and WotC's commercial publishing decisions, are inextricably linked, then one is likely to see the confining of the big tent to the fan communities as a hypocritical move.

It probably does support Pathfinder and retroclones, but withholding does not, in any way I can discern, support 4e. The people not playing 4e now are obviously not playing by choice, and there is no way to support them via 4e.

From WotC's point of view, every reduction in support for PF/OSR might be seen as marginally reducing the number of new PF/OSR games, and hence marginally increasing the likelihood of a 4e game starting in its place. This assumes that there are some gamers for whom system is a less salient concern than the mere occurence of a game to play - but my view is that this is a fairly safe assumption. More open to doubt might be the size of the respective margins. I have no evidence one way or the other.

If WotC continue as they have, Pathfinder will no longer simply be a continuation of some version of D&D, but a true rival, and a harbinger of more to come.

I think that it already is a true rival. The assumption that PF is a rival to WotC underpins my attempts to understand why, from WotC's point of view, the GSL/DDI strategy, plus the no-PDF strategy, might seem commercially rational.

However, they remain an active and visible part of the D&D community... at this point, they may represent a more culturally salient segment than 4e consumers.

<snip>

It may be that the GSL/OGL split is only the first crack in an acceleration toward a post-D&D role-playing world. Truly, anyone can publish.

As far as publication is concerned, you may be right. But DDI - the selling of access rights to a privately-controlled database - is an alternative model for making money from RPGs, which WotC seems to be banking on.

As for the point about cultural salience - I think the question in part becomes "whose culture"? If DDI and Encounters (bringing with it, presumably, DDI subscriptions and sales of Fortune Cards) do the job that WotC is hoping for, then there will grow up a whole alternative RPGing culture in which published books (even modules and campaign supplements) play at best a secondary role. For these players, PF and OSR may have little cultural salience.

Personally, I hope that 4e as a traditional (ie published) RPG doesnt die off too much. I survived the death of Rolemaster, which is no longer really a living game with a vibrant community (the ICE forums are testament to this, in my view). When I decided to start playing 4e instead, one of the side benefits seemed to be a strong D&D community. I can keep playing 4e without this side benefit (just as I kept playing RM) but it would be a little bit sad to see it go.

 

[pawsplay]

As far as publication is concerned, you may be right. But DDI - the selling of access rights to a privately-controlled database - is an alternative model for making money from RPGs, which WotC seems to be banking on.

As for the point about cultural salience - I think the question in part becomes "whose culture"? If DDI and Encounters (bringing with it, presumably, DDI subscriptions and sales of Fortune Cards) do the job that WotC is hoping for, then there will grow up a whole alternative RPGing culture in which published books (even modules and campaign supplements) play at best a secondary role. For these players, PF and OSR may have little cultural salience.

That is a reasonable business plan, in the sense that having acces to a group of reliable subscribers is good. However, I really have to wonder where the water in the pipe is going to come from. How would someone find D&D who is not already connected to a gamer subscribed to the DDI? Is there any product they can use to keep D&D "on the shelves" successfully as a gateway?

Personally, I hope that 4e as a traditional (ie published) RPG doesnt die off too much. I survived the death of Rolemaster, which is no longer really a living game with a vibrant community (the ICE forums are testament to this, in my view). When I decided to start playing 4e instead, one of the side benefits seemed to be a strong D&D community. I can keep playing 4e without this side benefit (just as I kept playing RM) but it would be a little bit sad to see it go.

I'll tell you what, if it comes down to a handful of old fools, I'll play in your Rolemaster game if you'll play in something I want to.

The overarching goal seems to be to turn D&D (tabletop, hobby game) into M:tG (multiplatform, mass market game). I just don't know if it's feasible, or if the game will survive WotC's attempts to do it.

I remember a surreal period of time, when I was in college, and we all heard TSR went bankrupt. How could the publisher of D&D go bankrupt? But we shrugged and kept playing, AD&D and RC D&D and GURPs and HERO and everything else. Some time later, WotC picked up the pieces, and here we are today. It will be surreal if D&D bottoms up again.

 

[pemerton]

I really have to wonder where the water in the pipe is going to come from. How would someone find D&D who is not already connected to a gamer subscribed to the DDI? Is there any product they can use to keep D&D "on the shelves" successfully as a gateway?

I guess that Encounters is meant to be an element of this - but of course Encounters relies upon a potential D&D-er going to the gameshop and taking part.

Maybe the thought is that Magic players will be lured into crossing over - I don't know. Maybe the hope was that the Red Box in toy stores would help, although that strikes me personally as a bit unrealistic. I see the Red Box mostly as a nostalgia sell to those who played back in the day - although maybe on the margins it will prompt some to get their kids playing who otherwise wouldn't.

Again, with all this speculation it makes a big difference how wide these margins are - how many MtG players are crossing over, how many retired grognards got their kids involved via the Red Box who wouldn't otherwise have googled D&D, etc, etc. Given WotC's apparent difficulty in forming a stable business strategy, it seems they don't have an especially good handle on it either.

The overarching goal seems to be to turn D&D (tabletop, hobby game) into M:tG (multiplatform, mass market game). I just don't know if it's feasible, or if the game will survive WotC's attempts to do it.

I remember a surreal period of time, when I was in college, and we all heard TSR went bankrupt. How could the publisher of D&D go bankrupt? But we shrugged and kept playing, AD&D and RC D&D and GURPs and HERO and everything else. Some time later, WotC picked up the pieces, and here we are today. It will be surreal if D&D bottoms up again.

I'd be surprised if D&D tanks, but you never know. Pathfinder shows there's some sort of mass market (in the RPG sense of mass market) for a fairly traditional, rules heavy but highly playable fantasy RPG - but from WotC's point of view I have to assume it's just not enough of a market to sustain the sort of operation they're interested in, and/or depends upon delivering a product - popular adventures - that WotC seems unable to produce.

When 4e came out, I really thought that WotC must know something that I didn't, and that Ron Edwards had only speculated about, concerning the popular viability of a (at least somewhat) non-traditional game with metagame mechanics built in at ground level (eg Come and Get It) and mechanically structured but non-simulationist conflict resolution mechanics (eg skill challenges, and even healing surges and warlord healing).

But between their modules, and Encounters (or at least my impression of it - I've never played in it), and my sense of what comes out in Dragon and Dungeon (again, I'm not a DDI subscriber) they seem to be approaching the marketing and support of the game from precisely the tactical skirmish angle that has caused so much derision of the system.

And they produce thematically rich sourcebooks, with example story arcs that give a sense of what a willing group could do with the cosmology given its integration into the game at all levels of PC build, monster design and hence overall scenario design - I'm thinking Plane Above, Underdark, Demonicon - and then do nothing to produce modules or GM advice to help make any of this a reality in play.

I've just recently converted the Demon of the Red Grove scenario from the original HeroWars Narrators Book to 4e. Obviusly 4e is a different game from HeroWars/Quest, and the conversion is not exact - I'm setting the scenario in the Feywild, and using a glabrezu remodelled as a level 14 or 15 solo as my demon. And the sequence of skill challenges and then combat that I envisage will be a little different from the original. Nevetheless the conversion is surprisingly straightforward - things like the skill challenge mechanics, for example, make it much easier to see how to realise the pacing of the scenario, then would be the case with a strongly simulationist system like Rolemaster.

Why is WotC not producing adventures like this, that really show off what the system can do to deliver a fantasy RPG experience that you can't get so easily with AD&D or 3E - instead of producing hack dungeon crawls or combat fests that are in many ways pale imitations of what 1st ed AD&D in particular was capable of offering?

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this rant is, other than that WotC seems to have some sort of dissonance between the game it has actually designed, and the way in which it is trying to grow and market it. If 4e - and hence, perhaps, branded D&D, tanks, will that be because no one liked the game? Or because they didn't present it as they might have? Or just because PF has dominated the field for mainstream fantasy RPGing?

I'll tell you what, if it comes down to a handful of old fools, I'll play in your Rolemaster game if you'll play in something I want to.

Careful - I might hold you to that!

 

[CuRoi]

IBut between their modules, and Encounters (or at least my impression of it - I've never played in it), and my sense of what comes out in Dragon and Dungeon (again, I'm not a DDI subscriber) they seem to be approaching the marketing and support of the game from precisely the tactical skirmish angle that has caused so much derision of the system.

Why is WotC not producing adventures like this, that really show off what the system can do to deliver a fantasy RPG experience that you can't get so easily with AD&D or 3E - instead of producing hack dungeon crawls or combat fests that are in many ways pale imitations of what 1st ed AD&D in particular was capable of offering?

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this rant is, other than that WotC seems to have some sort of dissonance between the game it has actually designed, and the way in which it is trying to grow and market it. If 4e - and hence, perhaps, branded D&D, tanks, will that be because no one liked the game? Or because they didn't present it as they might have? Or just because PF has dominated the field for mainstream fantasy RPGing?

I recall an earlier discussion we had on skill challenges. Again, I have to say it's a case of a skilled DM turning water into wine. (or flip it around to wine into water - I'm not trying to make a qualitative judgment here). You seem concerned that WotC isn't pushing what YOU believe the system to be capable of. Bluntly, I think that's only because you can personally make the system support that capability, not because the system is naturally capable of it.

I always have to be careful, becasue this is not a rant against 4e on my part. It's a fun game, I see its merits, love some things they did, etc. Its weakness is precisely that I cannot use that system to craft an open ended story the way I craft them. So despite its merits, I'll never play it.

An example I gave in another thread also comes to mind. A player desperately wanted to do something similar to Iron Tide and claimed it wasn't possible in a 2e or 3e because it wasn't spelled out to the letter how you would do it. Therefore, 4e was a superior product.

My repsonse is precisely the opposite - BECAUSE it isn't spelled out to the letter in previous editions, as the DM I can craft some way for that player to achieve the results they want. In 4e all you have that does something like Tide of Iron is - Tide of Iron. It all boils down to the DM being able to work on the fly (which I prefer) and while 4e is "Easier" on the DM from a rules perspective, it isn't IMO easier on the DM from a story perspective.

If you have found ways to massage the system into a grand, thematically deep collaborative story building system, hey, more power to you. But the fact of the matter is, 4e truly is a game centered around dungeon delving / skirmishes. That is precisely why it may seem to you that WotC is presenting it as such in their products. The amazing thing is many people will think I have intended this as a slam against 4e, and truthfully its not meant as anything of the sort - just an observation.

I loved 1e and most of those adventure modules were dungeon delving mine car rides where the DM was told explicitly what to do and what not to do. I of course always ignored those instructions and let things derail. Can you do the same with 4e? I'm sure you could, but frankly, there are too places where I want rules but there are none or places where I don't want rules and they are in abundance, so it's not worth the effort.

I think they wanted to do many things to try to expand the player base for DnD. Lower entry level requirements for DMs was one. DMing is frankly a talent (a rather useless one at that but a talent nonetheless) and not everyone can do it. With 1e, 2e, and 3e, I have seen many over-crowded games because "nobody wants to DM". So, they decide to spell it all out, require less work for the DM, and don't make the DM have to improv so much. Once that's done, perhaps you increase the number of DMs which will increase sales and presumably your player base. Consequently, you may leave old salty free-form DMs with a feeling of having their hands tied.

I also think they may have intentionally wanted to divorce the collaborative story idea - or at least let 4e boil back down to the "dungeon delving, skirmishing combat fests" that made up many early DnD modules. Because this tackles another assumed complaint people have with RPGs - lack of time to play them. You know, it's hard to get a group of working, college attending, child raising people to agree to a set time and place each week and sit still for 5 hours. So if they have a skirmish based game they can get people in and out of the door in 2 hours tops, then thats good. Spell out what exactly needs to be done for "winning" combats, spell out what exactly needs to be done for "winning" non-combat stuff and again, presumably more people can find time to play.

I think both of those things were considered when designing 4e, and they both make perfect sense to me on some level. However, the end result is not a game I'd move to. I'd probably back-track to 2e frankly before I moved to 4e - and again this is all just my humble opinion.