D&D 4E Monte Cook on licensing (and 4E in general?)

[Thornir Alekeg]

I agree that forum polls don't mean too much, but they have to mean something. Let me correct myself: The Poll shows that 61% of ENWorld members and visitors that entereded that thread and decided to vote don't care for open gaming.

That is not correct. They (including myself) didn't say they don't care for open gaming, they said they would buy 4e even if there wasn't open gaming.

As one of those 20,000 people who bought Monte's Book of Eldritch Might PDF, along with many other third party products (Scarred Lands, Arcana Evolved, d20 World Of Warcraft) I can say I think they add a lot to the game. On the other hand I would not refuse to buy and play 4e if they decided to not have any 3rd party support.

Your statement would be correct if the poll choice with 61% read "I would only purchase 4e if it were completely closed.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Basically, pdf publishing is very cool, though it's barely a blip on the radar of something like Wizards, and it'll never totally supplant books, but it's a nice way to make a small profit as a small outfit, without having to deal with the immense overhead that a process like WotC's can generate. It's a different way to work with the industry, and it's rewarding in its own ways, I imagine.

That's exactly right and very well put.

 

[HeinorNY]

That is not correct. They (including myself) didn't say they don't care for open gaming, they said they would buy 4e even if there wasn't open gaming.

As one of those 20,000 people who bought Monte's Book of Eldritch Might PDF, along with many other third party products (Scarred Lands, Arcana Evolved, d20 World Of Warcraft) I can say I think they add a lot to the game. On the other hand I would not refuse to buy and play 4e if they decided to not have any 3rd party support.

Your statement would be correct if the poll choice with 61% read "I would only purchase 4e if it were completely closed.

OK: The Poll shows that 61% of ENWorld members and visitors that entereded that thread and decided to vote will buy 4E even if it's closed. which is enough to make my point.

 

[JohnSnow]

OK: The Poll shows that 61% of ENWorld members and visitors that entereded that thread and decided to vote will buy 4E even if it's closed. which is enough to make my point.

Actually, I think the poll was worded in such a way as to encourage those people who were in favor of open gaming to vote.

So what that means is that of the tens of thousands of users here, only 39% of the people in that thread cared enough to voice their opinion. If my memory serves on how many people voted in that thread, that means that about 300 of ENworld's members are vehemently in favor of open gaming. If you figure there's 20,000 people here, that's slightly over 1.5% who were interested enough to vote decisively in favor of open gaming.

Sounds about right.

 

[AZRogue]

The car ... is this THREAD! I'm a prophet.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The car ... is this THREAD! I'm a prophet.

While your humor seems to go unnoticed, I definitely appreciate it.

All hail to our new Prophetic Overlord!

 

[Darkthorne]

Actually, I think the poll was worded in such a way as to encourage those people who were in favor of open gaming to vote.

So what that means is that of the tens of thousands of users here, only 39% of the people in that thread cared enough to voice their opinion.

^^ This seems like very bad math, but that not withstanding I do not care about the GSL/OGL etc. I also voted that I would switch to 4E so saying only that poll was for people who were in favor of it is invalid. I do not wish 3pp any loss of business but whether a GSL exists or not will not affect anything my groups do. Until very recently no one ever used a published adventure, everything was created by my the people in my group. Until this year I had NO clue Enworld even existed. None of my group purchases 3rd party material with the exception of maybe one person who in the whole scheme of things is new to the group. My core group has been together for over 20 years and not one of them will be affected by no GSL existence.

 

[AZRogue]

While your humor seems to go unnoticed, I definitely appreciate it.

All hail to our new Prophetic Overlord!

Thanks. It's all good. I think I'm hysterical, and that sustains me.

 

[Voadam]

So Monte Cook doesn't seem pleased about the 4E licensing (near the bottom):

http://montecook.livejournal.com/140809.html

I can understand, but he just spent the preceding X paragraphs explaining how he loved the PDF distribution. It seems that he is on the leading edge of a low cost way to be a 3rd party publisher.

1) Right your own stuff
2) Distribute via the Internet without hard copy versions (No printing time)
3) PROFIT!!!

I am also a little disappointed he has written off 4E. (That isn't meant to be loaded language; He wasn't mean about it.) He gave no criticisms, but he has always seemed the coolest and most even tempered of the ex-WotC employees. I expected for him to at least have the rules before reading such a declaration. From prior posts, SKR implied that Monte and he had not seen them. Or perhaps I read too much into it...

He implies that he has no desire to do 4e stuff. Sounds to me like he is happy with 3e and the terms of the OGL for his foreseeable RPG game publishing sideline and will stick with it.

Don't expect much more on the Malhavoc front, though. And in case you were wondering, don't expect any 4E-compatible material or conversions of our stuff to 4E. (Even if I wanted to do 4E stuff, and to be honest I really don't, the morass that the current licensing situation appears to be in is not at ALL attractive to me as a publisher.) However, look for some interesting announcements in coming days and weeks regarding other projects. It's still a small portion of what I'm doing, and there's every reason to believe that it won't last long, but it's fun.

Summing up the current licensing situation for 4e stuff as a morass seems fair to me. Currently if you want to publish licensed 4e stuff it is an unknown quantity with hints of a variety of restrictions. That means you cannot realistically work on stuff not knowing the rules, not knowing what type of content you can publish, and not knowing what other terms the license will require or if they will be acceptable. Companies like Goodman and Necromancer that intend to publish 4e support products have to wait or gamble on future products currently being written in the dark.

Compared with that Monte has a lot of system mastery of 3e, he knows he enjoys playing and tinkering with the game, experience making 3e products, and known quantities he is comfortable with publishing under the OGL.

 

[Cryndo]

As I pointed out in another thread, 4Ed runs the risk of being the RPG equivalent of New Coke (aka Coke II). Here's why:

Who's the Pepsi to WotC's New Coke? For 4E to become the New Coke, there needs to be a Pepsi to siphon those who won't convert. Paizo is more of an RC or maybe Shasta. I don't foresee doom for WotC on this one. They screwed up the GSL and will probably underwhelm us at the start with Insider, but I seriously doubt they'll see much erosion of their market share.