Necromancer Games NOT going with current GSL.

[Voadam]

It still doesn't escape the fundamental point, however, why the outrage at WotC for a restrictive license, when there's no outrage at every other game company which doesn't have a license at all?

Why does D&D need to be licensed, just because one edition was open?

Here's the source of my anger.

I play D&D and not other games. I used to adapt stuff from other games to my D&D game before there was the OGL. 3e came around and the OGL with it. Now I bought a number of WotC D&D and d20 books (I own 30) but not everything from WotC. I bought hundreds of OGL books, they filled niches WotC did not provide, had different styles and tastes and price points and formats that appealed to me etc. Instead of neat books from other companies that I had to work at to get compatible to my D&D games there was a bonanza of neat third-party books with directly compatible mechanics. Also with the free OGL srd I could reference game rules easily on my computer which was a huge boon to my games. I got a lot out of the OGL for my D&D games.

WotC decided to move away from having 4e open. The 4e SRD is a reference for terms to cite in publications, not an actual rules reference guide useable by gamers. PDFs of the rules cost $75 instead. The GSL restrictions are reducing the number of people willing to make 4e stuff and so options for 4e D&D mechanically compatible stuff are reduced.

4e is in the same category as White Wolf's Exalted for me right now. Looks like a neat cool game with a lot of great features, but too expensive and without enough features for me to consider switching from 3.5/OGL D&D.

Wizards went from taking D&D from my main game to my only game with 3e then made 4e D&D not worth buying right now because they decided to downgrade the features they previously offered.

I like D&D, it annoys me that these WotC decisions are driving me away from picking up the new edition.

I am annoyed at White Wolf that they priced the exalted pdfs beyond what I would be willing to buy them for, but I don't care as much as I do about WotC's actions because I play D&D.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I don't personally see anything to ascribe malice to, however, and I doubt Pathfinder is as big a perceived threat in WotC as the Pathfinder boards and champions would have it.

Pathfinder doesn't need to threaten WotC to be successful. A certain number of people are already not going to switch to 4th edition. The poll numbers here at ENWorld and the anecdotal examples I've seen here locally show that there is a market for people who don't want to make the change. It might be that they don't like 4E, or they might be big enough fans of Paizo that they want to continue using their adventure material regardless of system, or maybe they just love 3.5 and don't feel a need to take such a radical step away from it. Those are the people Pathfinder is for.

The only way Pathfinder would truly challenge 4E is if 4E bombs. If that happens, there will either be a massive shift away from D&D and towards something else, possibly Pathfinder, or the industry will bust spectacularly. I don't see either of these things happening, so I'm happy with D&D holding on to its position at the same time a healthy 3rd party merket exists. Everybody wins.

 

[Xath]

If only the 3.5 or Pathfinder fans weren't so judgmental towards us 4th edition fans (y'know, looking down on us "fanbois" for liking our "dumbed down" game). Then we might actually find some common ground.

Please refrain from attacking the fans of other editions. There is room enough for everyone here, and baiting is not tolerated.

For those of you who responded to this bait, please do not do so in the future.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Ari, are you planning on writing any books for the Pathfinder system, once it comes out?

As the saying goes, "never say never." But at the moment, I have no plans to do so.

I like Paizo. I like working with Erik Mona, in particular. But the truth is, having now done both, I find designing and writing for 4E much more enjoyable and rewarding than designing for 3.5 and its variants. This isn't always the case with every mechanic, of course, but I've found it to be the case with at least, oh, 80% to 85% of mechanics.

So right now, I have no interest in stepping away from 4E to work with 3.5--and while Pathfinder isn't exactly 3.5, it's still the same basic system.

Now as I said, that's where things stand now. All sorts of things can happen in the future--I might be offered an idea so cool that I want to do it no matter the system; I might come up with an idea that doesn't fit into 4E for whatever reason; there are all sorts of possibilities--but those are all big "ifs."

 

[Voadam]

Well, that is true....but I guess I should clarify my thinking in pointing out that I meant that there weren't options for D&D by companies that weren't WotC or TSR, right?

Judges Guild, Role Aids, Chaosium, Kenzer and others did D&D stuff as well. And lots of RPG products were D&D with house rules or with just the serial numbers filed off. It was not as widespread or prominent as the wave of OGL products but there was a large number of older edition Non TSR D&D products. I found a website once collecting various old non TSR D&D product descriptions and I think there were over 100 companies with stuff.

I really liked my Role Aids Demons books.

 

[evilref]

Pathfinder doesn't need to threaten WotC to be successful. A certain number of people are already not going to switch to 4th edition. The poll numbers here at ENWorld and the anecdotal examples I've seen here locally show that there is a market for people who don't want to make the change. It might be that they don't like 4E, or they might be big enough fans of Paizo that they want to continue using their adventure material regardless of system, or maybe they just love 3.5 and don't feel a need to take such a radical step away from it. Those are the people Pathfinder is for.

I completely agree that it can be succesful, even highly succesful (20k+ sales in the first year) without threatening D&D. However, there's a notable undercurrent, if not outright expectation, by a number of Pathfinder supporters who seem to believe that it's going to outsell 4e.

Personally I hope it is succesful as I don't think my ideal of Paizo producing 4e adventures is going to happen, so instead I can pick up Pathfinder adventures and convert.

Edit, one caveat however, if as you say pathfinder changes 50% of the core rules of 3.5 (I've not checked Pathfinder since I think the first Alpha), which is what you expressed in a thread here, doesn't that also require people to change their games and learn new rules, so it's not the whole of the 'don't like 4e' audience that's going to be opened up (which would indeed be bumper numbers).

The only way Pathfinder would truly challenge 4E is if 4E bombs. If that happens, there will either be a massive shift away from D&D and towards something else, possibly Pathfinder, or the industry will bust spectacularly. I don't see either of these things happening, so I'm happy with D&D holding on to its position at the same time a healthy 3rd party merket exists. Everybody wins.

The ironic thing with the number of people who post that they hope that 4e fails, or that WotC crashes because of it is that they're probably not realising how intrinsic D&D and its sales are to the industry. A lot of game stores went out of business around the time TSR stopped producing stuff and a lot more pretty much just survived because of Magic. Take out D&D (without something selling in comparable numbers very quickly) and what excuse for an industry we have will crash, and a lot of other companies and shops will go down in a cascade.

Thus, the GSL changing to become more palatable to more companies is probably the best solution for everyone (except possibly those people at Wizards who don't want to see x/y/z opened up).

 

[Umbran]

Instead, WOTC has engaged in constant misidrection, missed deadlines, and conflicting messages, and it's hard not to watch it all and not conclude it is a deliberate attempt to keep competitors off balance,

The problem with that line of reasoning is that D&D (and by extension, WotC) has never had effective competition. I've yet to see a cogent argument that any publisher was in a position to change that. We should not mistake an attempt to maximize profits with anti-competitive maneuvers.

 

[Darrin Drader]

The ironic thing with the number of people who post that they hope that 4e fails, or that WotC crashes because of it is that they're probably not realising how intrinsic D&D and its sales are to the industry.

Honestly, I think a lot of it is the equivalent of home team bravado. I've been enjoying myself over at the Paizo boards, mainly because we can discuss Pathfinder and 3.5 without the controversy there. I don't think anyone really wants to see D&D fail unless that failure results in the transition to somebody who will treat it better.

A lot of game stores went out of business around the time TSR stopped producing stuff and a lot more pretty much just survived because of Magic. Take out D&D (without something selling in comparable numbers very quickly) and what excuse for an industry we have will crash, and a lot of other companies and shops will go down in a cascade.

Sadly, I agree with you.

Thus, the GSL changing to become more palatable to more companies is probably the best solution for everyone (except possibly those people at Wizards who don't want to see x/y/z opened up).

I absolutely agree with you here. Change the GSL and everything changes - except for my system of choice. I still prefer 3.5/Pathfinder. I was originally planning on getting the 4E player book by Necromancer since one of my friends wants to run some 4E in the future.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I doubt Pathfinder is as big a perceived threat in WotC as the Pathfinder boards and champions would have it.

The OGL was a document that screamed, "We're not worried about third party competition!" The GSL is not.

'Nuff Said.


RC

 

[xechnao]

the industry will bust spectacularly.

I do not agree with this. How or why would the industry bust spectacularly? The industry of the hobby is not D&D. D&D is an iconic brand name among others of one part of the hobby. Miniature games, card games, board games, rpgs make part of the industry. Novels and video games can support it too. If 4e bombs nothing happens to the industry IMO. Home social-game entertainment is not going anywhere if 4e bombs.