OGL; Is it working?

[BryonD]

Joe and a few others seem to have been arguing two points, that there's "core d20" or "real D20" (which we've been informed our D20 materials aren't considered) and that the big list of WotC products Joe posted didn't represent the "obvious products that have been done before" stuff that Pramas was referring to. I was hitting on both of those points in one post, not at all trying to say that "been done before" is interchangeable with "not D20 support."

I think I'm one of the few others.

I guess the problem is they we are talking about several different things and none of them can be clearly defined.

Pramas has said that we (we being D20 publishers in general, not just GR) are doing things like licensed products and products that are apparently considered "niche" because the obvious stuff has been done to death. In the not too distant past people overwhelmingly cried out "Who needs five different dwarf/fighter/feat books?!" and the D20 publishers listened and diversified and looked for interesting ways to stretch boundaries and give people interesting stuff.

Yep, that's people. They tend to do this stuff.
I think listening to people can sometimes be a surprisingly bad way to find out what they want. You get vocal minorities skewing the data. You also get a lot of people saying that they "don't" want something, but giving you no data on what they do want.

We keep hearing the "market" cry out, more fluff less crunch. But then we hear publishers say that they produce fluff and it doesn't sell as well as crunch. A thousand people saying they want fluff doesn't mean much to the market when they have a thousand different ideas of what constitutes the fluff that each individual wants. In the end, the amrket is where the money goes, not where the talk goes.

Now people say "Those weird things aren't 'core'/'real'/D&D enough," seeming to be asking for those very same standard, obvious things that they'd been protesting the surplus of before. Do they want more, or don't they? We've done products of both stripes this year, and I'm not getting any kind of clear message from the market that one thing IS actually desired. The Advanced series? That's as generic, "core", and broadly applicable as we get. Yet there's no clear indicator that more of those books are indeed what people want. They're not overwhelmingly better than anything else, including Thieves World or Mythic Vistas.

Well, there is a whole seperate aspect of where does the 3rd party D20 market stands. I'll just leave that alone because I don't have a fraction of the knowledge there that you do. But if sales are down in general, then that must be taken into account in any further discussion.

There are people, such as me, who jump at the advanced series and aren't really interested in TW. I'm certain there are others who truly are burned out with the generic stuff. Two or three years ago groups A & B were both buying a lot of stuff. Now, perhaps, they are segmented. So when you do a TW, group A complains that you are not doing stuff that they want for their D&D game and if you do Advanced XYZ group B complains that you are doing the same old stuff. Unfortunately there isn't anything incompatible there. It is a segmented market, in some ways, and each segment is certain that their ideas are best.

Heck, I wouldn't even state that the "D20 support" stuff is a better way to go than the niche stuff. I have no idea what sells better. I just know there are different points of view on them and you are going to hear them.

I'm only being a little sarcastic and rest assured I'm not angry. I'm just protesting the idea that there's some clear message that players want X and if only companies would listen up and give it to them like WotC does (as if WotC is doing anything different from the top D20 producers) things would be all fine and good. Joe got my scorning voice because I feel the products he was listing off either fell into the "done already" or "note core support" categories, but only after he pulled out his own scorning that Pramas used the word struggle (as in "struggling to come up with compelling new ideas, as we can see from the surplus of concepts that fall into the 'obvious books that have been done to several times over' category."). And if the bottom line is that WotC is king of us all and whatever they do can't be compared to what D20 publishers are doing, like Eberron getting a pass as "core enough" but Black Company or Theives' World not just by virtue of the fact that they're WotC, the publishers of Official Dungeons and Dragons, why even talk about what they're doing in relation to the question of whether the OGL is working or not...

I'm sorry, I don't mean to imply that there is one clear message. They are probably lots of different messages all coming at the same time and they makes for just so much noise. Before I chimed in the topic had already come up that a lot of stuff is not perceived as "D20 support" and that was one message that was being heard through the cacophany. As someone who can relate to that point of view I chimed in, hoping to shed some light on the thought. (obviously I did a very poor job)

Being WotC really has very little to do with the topic at hand. Eberron doesn't get a pass for being WotC. Eberron gets a pass because it is designed from the ground up with being a D&D game that uses all of the D&D material. Freeport gets a pass for the same reason. TW, in many people's perception, mine included, was built first and foremost to model the TW books. There is the difference. If I buy a bunch of WotC books for my game, I can also buy Hammer and Helm and race/feat/class books from 5 other 3rd party publishers and expect it all to pretty much work together. But if I buy TW, then I can't make that assumption. For example, I expect that for a given game I've got to throw out either the core D&D magic system or the TW magic system. So that is ineffecient. And I know I'm not going to play in the actual TW setting, so that is going to be more stuff that won't be used. It comes down to me wanting to buy product that works with the product I already have.

You could easily argue that I can play one game with D&D magic and then later play a game with TW magic. But in my case it just isn't going to happen. I am simply set for a very long time with D&D and Grim Tales. Two of my players are die-hard D&Ders. They know how much I love GT and they enjoy when we play it. But if you ask them, they want to be the dwarf barbarian and elven archer killing orcs. So when I get a chance to divert from D&D, I'm gonna use that chance to run GT.

Bottom line, no matter what you do, some people are going to complain. And when today's complaints are exactly the opposite of yesterday's it is not a contradiction. It just means today's action caused a different group of people to speak up. The best you can do is try to understand what is really meant by each individual message without trying to look for one unifying answer. Then try to understand what real spending habits are driven by which message. No matter what you do, there will be plenty of complaints.

But trust me, there are a lot of really crappy companies out there and no one is complaining about what they do, because no one cares. There are VERY few companies that I would take the time to spell this out to. So, I'm really meaning to help and I really just claim to speak for my point of view. If my position doesn't represent where the funds are, then so be it. But when you hear complaints of this type, I think this is, more or less, what is meant.

 

[BryonD]

The Book of Fiends, I knew what I was getting. Thieves World, I thought was going to be a seperate game tweaked from the PHB classes and/or magic level.


I dont think that anyone is saying that these books are any "less" D20 in any way, or inferior in any way, but they are saying that people can percieve, say, Black Company as not meshing with the PHB as well as "generic feat book XX" If this isnt the case and things like the Thieves World alternate magic system could exist alongside the PHB magic system without unbalancing a core rules game, then Im real happy and will do my best to get those books pronto, but the fact that someone who is fairly educated about the subject can be confused about it means that average joe gamer who doesnt even know what the OGL is could be even more confused.

That's certainly in tune with what I'm trying to say.
Perception is reality is key here.
I can't buy everything. I'm going to make the best choices I can based on the data I receive.

 

[Psion]

Joe and a few others seem to have been arguing two points, that there's "core d20" or "real D20" (which we've been informed our D20 materials aren't considered) and that the big list of WotC products Joe posted didn't represent the "obvious products that have been done before" stuff that Pramas was referring to. I was hitting on both of those points in one post, not at all trying to say that "been done before" is interchangeable with "not D20 support."

Well, I don't know how you want to categorize me. I do see most of your products as support. But I did like the focus of your company's product line a year ago better than I do now.

And you may just be following where the market leads you; I can't blame you for that. But it makes the products less useful for me, because I am looking for products that are highly portable to my "universe" of d20 fantasy products. It's going to be a lot harder sale to get me to buy into something that I know is going to take adaptation work. But that just speaks to the type of customer I am: I do not shift games regularly. I like going with the same campaign for a long time, but with lots of workable options in that game to keep things fresh.

Pramas has said that we (we being D20 publishers in general, not just GR) are doing things like licensed products and products that are apparently considered "niche" because the obvious stuff has been done to death. In the not too distant past people overwhelmingly cried out "Who needs five different dwarf/fighter/feat books?!" and the D20 publishers listened and diversified and looked for interesting ways to stretch boundaries and give people interesting stuff.

Yes, they listened. I raised my voice against such voices, but alas, the other customers who were comfortable with your more traditional d20 fantasy offerings weren't the ones compelled to speak.

(It's not unlike the tenor of most forums that allow politics discussions. The body of posters whose party is not in power tends to be the loudest...)

That said, Green Ronin has always seemed to me to be a company that could put out products that were portable to traditional d20 fantasy without putting out "just another dwarf/fighter/feat" book. Hamunaptra is a loverly example.

 

[eyebeams]

So books that sell well in a sub-line shouldn't continue? Does that mean the Quintessential line should've stopped with the first book for Mongoose? That would go against the grain of common sense. "This is selling well! Let's stop!"

Actually, they don't sell that well compared to the PHB. That makes it small potatoes by WotC standards and OGL rationale. WotC bothering with them means that they are accepting humbler margins instead of expecting the OGL to sell PHBs for them.

As for Mongoose, they're also small potatoes compared to the PHB. The point of the OGL was to let companies like Mongoose take care of the small potatoes, while WotC would sell PHBS and other cores.

Moonsea being part of the supplement treadmill? I think you're confusing the thousand settings of TSR vs updated material. Can anyone help on that with info either way?

No. WotC originally sold FR with the idea that there'd be a big, broad-selling core and maybe some equally broad supplements (like magic and monsters). After that, it's treadmill. It looks to me that WotC is willing to accept diminishing returns in inverse proportion to how well something sells, probably by tweaking print run sizes. That's why you can have a supplement for D20 Future which is a supplement for D20 Modern. D&D is less tolerant of such small potatoes.

Some posts have suggested that WoTC thought that these 3rd party companies would go for the adventuers and support the d20 license that way as opposed to trying to take WoTC on head to head.When WoTC wasn't doing full color hardcovers for 192 pages at $30 (latter 160), third party companies could have their dwarf books. Once the official versions started to hit though...

No. Their plan was to do little books of specialized subjects, at best, like Sword and Fist. They knew competing HCs were coming the moment Creature Collection 1 came out, if not sooner.

The fact is, WotC folks *said*, on multiple occasions, what their plan would be. They said they were in the business of selling PHBs first and wanted to leave anything beyond core support (and legacy material like books that existed in 1e) to minimal house treatment. This was the rationale for the brown softcover series that everybody hated.

It didn't work. The argument that the OGL would take care of it for them was bogus. They had to get their hands dirty hawking product that the company line used to argue was beneath them, and that's the long and short of it.

 

[WizarDru]

That said, Green Ronin has always seemed to me to be a company that could put out products that were portable to traditional d20 fantasy without putting out "just another dwarf/fighter/feat" book. Hamunaptra is a loverly example.

Funnily enough, I tend to think of Green Ronin as "that company that puts out my favorite Superhero game...and who sometimes puts out D&D supplements I like, too."

 

[wedgeski]

Actually, they don't sell that well compared to the PHB. That makes it small potatoes by WotC standards and OGL rationale. WotC bothering with them means that they are accepting humbler margins instead of expecting the OGL to sell PHBs for them.

*Nothing* sells well next to the PHB, your observation has no value. Wizards is simply after a piece of the non-Core pie, which they can quite happily chew on *at the same time* as watching the cash roll in from people who need to purchase the PHB to play third-party supplements.

It didn't work. The argument that the OGL would take care of it for them was bogus. They had to get their hands dirty hawking product that the company line used to argue was beneath them, and that's the long and short of it.

Your facts are probably correct, but your language - as always - is designed purely to provoke.

The OGL was/is a major experimental step forward for the industry. Everything was there for third party publishers to share material and mop up the market. That they didn't actually do that is their own lookout, not Wizards'.

 

[The Shaman]

The OGL was/is a major experimental step forward for the industry. Everything was there for third party publishers to share material and mop up the market. That they didn't actually do that is their own lookout, not Wizards'.

From what I've read, the introduction of 3.5 really helped to undercut a lot third-party publishers efforts in this regard - 3.0 product sat on shelves untouched, distributors and retailers became wary, and the market fragmented.

If I understand all of this correctly, that seems like one smelly fish you'd have to lay squarely on Wizards' doorstep.

 

[buzz]

It didn't work. The argument that the OGL would take care of it for them was bogus. They had to get their hands dirty hawking product that the company line used to argue was beneath them, and that's the long and short of it.

Isn't it possible that the d20STL and OGL are a success, even if all the original stated goals weren't realized?

I mean, no, it looks like the OGL didn't wholly rid WotC of the need to produce adventures and supplements. But does that necessarily mean that it didn't still shift some of the burden off their shoulders? And that those 3rd-party products didn't still drive interest in their core product, i.e., the PHB?

And how about Dancey's goal of driving support for other systems to a minimum? It's been established in other threads that there is no reliable data about the RPG market to which any of us are privy, so I all I can do is report what I see. I see that the top companies Ken Hite lists each year aren't all making different systems; at least a couple of them are d20. That's different than before the OGL. I also have seen that Kenson's Freedom City setting, instead of becoming a HERO supplement as originally intended, spawned a d20/OGL game, and one of the best d20 games at that.

It doesn't look like a drastic reduction in other systems to me, but it seems less disparate than before, even if minimally. Perhaps this is simply the minimum level we're ever going to see.

But, IANAII*. As a consumer of RPG product, the OGL has been great for me. My D&D game has more support available to it than ever before, from which I can pick and choose what I feel are the best products. I also have a body of games available that are similar enough in mechanics that it's pretty easy to move between them (and mix and match).

I'm happy.


*I Am Not An Industry Insider.

 

[buzz]

Two questions:

1. True20 is a success? I don't know enough about how well BR or the True20 PDF have sold to accept the assertion.

2. Of what interest would it be to WotC to release a closed 4e? Are the man-hours requried to type up the SRD worth more than the PR hit and removal of all 3rd-party support for D&D? The industry folk here keep talking as if this is probable, but I don't understand why it would be so.

 

[philreed]

Of what interest would it be to WotC to release a closed 4e?

I'm in the camp that feels 4e will not be OGL. If the OGL had actually worked to WotC's benefit, the way they expected it to, it would be more likely that they keep it. As it is I don't think they have any reason to continue to release under the OGL.

And I doubt dropping the OGL would have any impact on 4e.