Mongoose exits 4E ?

[Plane Sailing]

Between their OGL work and more recent Runequest-based work, I don't see why they would benefit from trying to work within WotC strictures when they can develop stuff with their own systems. They've done a good job at obtaining licensed properties and doing worthwhile stuff with those licenses in the past.

WotC's handling of the 4e licensing issues made it difficult for any of the potentially interested parties to get on board when it would have made a difference for them. I guess the gaming groups that did well out of the OGL typically have their own systems to champion now, and more power to them, I say.

Cheers

 

[catsclaw227]

I don't recall Mongoose releasing many d20 modules during the 3E/3.5E days. The only ones I can recall offhand, were an adventure path series of "Drow War" hardcover books.

I DMed much of this mega-campaign and it played really, really well. The maps sucked and the setup was a bit cheesy, but the whole thing played so nicely. Also, the main writer Adrian Bott was extremely helpful with deciphering some of the mapping issues.

According to his State of Mongoose post, they are converting this monster into Pathfinder. Excellent news for Pathfinder gamers.

 

[keterys]

It really is shocking to compare what happened with 3e 3pp and 4e 3pp.

 

[Votan]

Besides, I hadn't seen Mongoose put out anything recently at all.

Mongoose seems to be doing an acceptable job of Traveller. It's an odd release; fixing some things but keeping some of the really cool Traveller features (random character backgrounds) that have never really been replicated in other systems.

I've heard some concerns about the Babylon 5 supplement but I have not had the chance to buy it yet.

 

[Aus_Snow]

It really is shocking to compare what happened with 3e 3pp and 4e 3pp.

3e, the great opt-in; 4e, the great opt-out?

Sounds about right to me. And hardly surprising, at that.

 

[Umbran]

I think Character Builder has a lot to do with it. You can have all the cool paragon paths, feats, etc. you want, but the fact of the matter is that none of it can be imported into Character Builder.

People keep saying things like this - I don't believe the issue lies here. The gaming population is in the millions. I would expect the 4e playing population to be in at least the high hundreds of thousand, if not the millions.

I don't think so many people use the character builder, that failing to be in it is going to cut them out of the market. Rather like PDFs - it is a really big deal for some folks, but probably not for the majority of the potential market.

 

[nightwyrm]

I don't think so many people use the character builder, that failing to be in it is going to cut them out of the market. Rather like PDFs - it is a really big deal for some folks, but probably not for the majority of the potential market.

It may be that those who are most likely to buy 3pp material are also the ones who are most likely to make use of the character builder. There may be a lot of people who don't use the CB (casual gamers and the like), but they're also not the people who go looking for 3pp material.

 

[ggroy]

People keep saying things like this - I don't believe the issue lies here. The gaming population is in the millions. I would expect the 4e playing population to be in at least the high hundreds of thousand, if not the millions.

A better question is, how many of these hundreds of thousands of players are actually still playing 4E today? Or for that matter, how many of these players actually bought any 4E books to begin with.

Anecdotally from a small sample size, locally I get the impression that 4E is no longer considered "new". Many of the M:tG (and other card games), nWoD, Warhammer, and 3.5E folks who wanted to try the "new game" back in the summer of 2008, are no longer playing 4E today. I remember at several local FLGS and organized gaming groups in town, had quite a number of groups playing 4E back in the summer of 2008. Today the FLGS owners and organized gaming groups I know of, mentioned there's one or zero groups still playing 4E games now at their particular meetups. (At one of the FLGS, there were as many as 5 or 6 different 4E game groups back in the summer of 2008. This particular FLGS, had a lot of space for gaming tables).

Pathfinder hasn't really caught on locally much yet. At the same several FLGS and organized gaming groups, there's very few to no new Pathfinder games other than 3.5E games that decided to convert to Pathfinder (for whatever reasons).

For games held in private homes and organized groups I'm not directly acquainted with, I don't have any good data at all.

 

[ggroy]

It may be that those who are most likely to buy 3pp material are also the ones who are most likely to make use of the character builder. There may be a lot of people who don't use the CB (casual gamers and the like), but they're also not the people who go looking for 3pp material.

Another question is what happened to all those people who purchased all those many 3PP d20 supplement books during the 3E/3.5E era? Are these people still around today?

How many of them did not like 4E at all?

How many of them left tabletop rpg gaming altogether?

How many of them moved on to other non-D&D games?

 

[keterys]

Personally, I can say that I bought a lot of 3pp 3e products and, well, soured on buying a lot of them due to quality concerns. Towards the end of 3e I still bought a few products from some vendors I trusted, but I was barely trying any new ones and that practice has mostly carried over into 4e as well. Even if there are 4e products out there I'd use, I'm not looking. I just make my own stuff or do without.

In particular, I'd say that interest in player-oriented supplements among the 4 groups I play 4e with is basically 0. Not useful in LFR. Not useful with character builder. Not necessary if you can just ask the DM. Too lazy to care. (Some of the above apply to all of them I think)

Even without the GSL snafu, I suspect I'd be in a similar boat. The big change is that my paizo subscription might not have lapsed.