Pramas on the OGL

[xechnao]

Perhaps for me personally? I just said so in the post you were responding to. Please don't imply that I'm a liar.

I think the examples you use argue the other way actually.

Prior to the OGL there was GURPS Conan. A person looking to play in a Conan RPG picking up the Conan book would get GURPS stuff and probably will get GURPS supplements like GURPS Fantasy Bestiary to supplement their game instead of D&D stuff. After they have played their conan campaign if they want something more they will have learned and be familiar with GURPS rules and are more likely to go on to different GURPS stuff.

With OGL Conan a person starting with Conan will be familiar with basic D&D rules and might buy WotC D&D products that are fairly compatible to support their Conan game. Setting supplements will be Conan ones, but if they want more monsters or traps they must look to D&D type books such as the monster manuals. If after playing Conan they are looking for something different they will be familiar with D&D rules and the various D&D options which makes entering and switching to D&D easier.

So for people who start with a Conan RPG having an OGL Conan game seems significantly better for WotC.

With Ptolus it is a third-party D&D city setting with its own outer world and cosmology, but also designed to be fairly easy to plug into other campaign worlds. The group still needs a PH, DMG, and MM.

Malhavoc's Ptolus stuff includes: Ptolus, Player's Guide to Ptolus, Secrets of the Delvers (collected miscellanea), Banewarrens (a midlevel module), Night of Dissolution (mid level module), and Chaositech (evil power sourcebook). There is also a module by Fiery Dragon, some counters by Fiery Dragon, and some maps by Skeleton Key Games. I can't think of anything else.

There are other Malhavok support products that occupy the same niches as some WotC products, but there is no reason to exclusively use Ptolus or Malhavok stuff when playing a Ptolus campaign. Anyone who plays Ptolus as written is playing D&D, has bought D&D stuff, and has reason to keep buying D&D stuff. The Malhavoc Ptolus branded player support material is a single product, the free Player's Guide to the City. Malhavc's other player support materials are not Ptolus specific but generic D&D products. Malhavoc's Complete Book of Eldritch Might and WotC's Spell Compendium both support a Ptolus campaign and a purchaser wanting a lot more spells will get both or either for their D&D game, and the Spell Compendium is more widely available.

If they want player or DM support material there is a ton of applicable support material from WotC for them to buy. Also, if they want to move on from the City of Ptolus it is easy to transition to WotC settings like Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, or Dragonlance. If they want to go to another D&D city they can easily transition to gaming in WotC's Waterdeep, Sharn, or Stormreach.

It does not seem that groups starting D&D using OGL Ptolus as their setting will be a bad thing for WotC selling D&D products.

The closest argument is for OGL games that are essentially different mechanical games than D&D, such as Mutants and Masterminds or OGL Runequest.

People starting with M&M don't have a lot of WotC products that can supplement their game and have a bit of a jarring mechanics transition if they want to switch to D&D. There are similiarities in having saves, attack rolls, etc. but it is not as easy a transition as closer mechanical stand alone OGL games such as Arcana Evolved. Even so it is closer to D&D than HERO or Marvel Superheroes, for examples, and therefore seems still to be a net benefit for WotC.

I want to make a couple of points here.
Regarding Conan: people that buy into Conan most probably come from D&D already looking for an alternative setting such as the world of Conan- it is harder that customer traffic in this case has been the other way around. If customers do not come from D&D already they must be of the type of hardcore fans that they would hardly consider bother with other stuff.
Regarding Ptolus and M&M: the way you put it, it is clear that Ptolus does more damage to Wotc than M&M. The later is a different game, a different niche, sells to different people. Ptolus instead competes with D&D. It is not just a supplement that just adds value. It is a complete dedicated line that can fill out all gaming material and available gaming time one needs and has respectively.
Now I am not saying that things are 100% this way. But things are not 100% the way you want to put them too. Wotc is the one that knows better and it is up to them. What I don't agree with is people claiming that there are two factions at Wizards -the gamers who know the rpg market and the suits who don't and each of them fights the other and by conclusion the right thing for the game is the OGL even if Wotc happens to choose otherwise. So, I am of the opinion to give Wizards credit of the right choice regarding their business.

 

[2WS-Steve]

One problem with this debate, of course, is that it's very hard to point to any data or make any testable predictions.

Prediction-wise, I can guarantee that no matter what way WotC goes with the GSL, and what the outcome is, that over the next year they'll say they made the right decision and that it has been tremendously successful.

And 4e with or without a friendly open license will be successful.

But I can make this prediction, and it's testable:

If 4e is not released under an open license or released under a license that limits support to just a few closely assigned publishers, then 5e will be released under a much more open license.

Moreover, I think that under those circumstances 4e would later be "opened up" in order to generate more 3rd party support -- but that it will likely be too late to gain any great benefit, thus providing added impetus to move to a 5th edition as a sort of new reboot and return to the open gaming of 3rd edition.

If 4e does turn out to be released under a pretty open license then I've got no meaningful predictions.

 

[Delta]

That's an interesting prediction. I like the way you think.

 

[CaptainChaos]

One problem with this debate, of course, is that it's very hard to point to any data or make any testable predictions.

Well, yeah, that was the point of Pramas' blog entry that kicked off this whole discussion.

 

[Voadam]

Regarding Conan: people that buy into Conan most probably come from D&D already looking for an alternative setting such as the world of Conan- it is harder that customer traffic in this case has been the other way around. If customers do not come from D&D already they must be of the type of hardcore fans that they would hardly consider bother with other stuff.

I agree. Most gamers come from D&D. I was, however, responding to your post where you argued that

A starting group that decides to play Conan or Ptolus will influence its gamers to buy from the Conan or Ptolus series.
Claro?

So for hardcore Conan fans who want to try RPing in the Conan world they start off with an RPG set in Hyborea. Either GURPS Conan or OGL Conan. WotC gets money from neither directly. Players who find they like RPing and want to explore more are more likely to go to different things in the system they already know rather than to new systems. GURPS for those familiar with GURPS, or OGL conan or D&D stuff for OGL Conan.

Does the existence of OGL Conan hurt or help WotC here?

It looks to me like OGL Conan is better for WotC than GURPS Conan. I do not see OGL Conan Hurting WotC under this scenario.

 

[Voadam]

Regarding Ptolus and M&M: the way you put it, it is clear that Ptolus does more damage to Wotc than M&M. The later is a different game, a different niche, sells to different people. Ptolus instead competes with D&D. It is not just a supplement that just adds value. It is a complete dedicated line that can fill out all gaming material and available gaming time one needs and has respectively.

Ptolus is a setting city sourcebook with a bit of an expanded world Campaign Setting, though also set up to be able to be inserted into other D&D campaign settings. It competes to an extent with WotC's Waterdeep, Stormreach, and Sharn, though a campaign can have multiple detailed fantasy cities in one game.

It is not a dedicated line that can fill out all gaming material. You still need a full set of D&D rules. You could play a game with nothing but the core rules and Ptolus, just like you could with core rules and nothing but the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting or Eberron Campaign Setting or even statless non-OGL Freeport or the Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World of Warhammer.

I disagree that it is clear Ptolus damages WotC.

The question here is, is it better for WotC if consumers are able to buy more NonWotC resources to use in a D&D game?

 

[SSquirrel]

The extent of Ptolus was ONE book. One adventure released by Malhavoc, one adventure by Fiery Dragon I think. There may have been others since, but those were the only things actually produced and written by Monte. Ptolus has no character gen, it requires the PHB to play. That supports WotC. It doesn't even compete with full settings like FR or Eberron, b/c you can simply drop it into any game world you want or you can use the small setting included, altho not much time is spent detailing anything outside of Ptolus itself.

 

[Henry]

The extent of Ptolus was ONE book. One adventure released by Malhavoc, one adventure by Fiery Dragon I think. There may have been others since, but those were the only things actually produced and written by Monte. Ptolus has no character gen, it requires the PHB to play. That supports WotC. It doesn't even compete with full settings like FR or Eberron, b/c you can simply drop it into any game world you want or you can use the small setting included, altho not much time is spent detailing anything outside of Ptolus itself.

Even further, Ptolus is the sort of thing Scott Rouse back in January said they WANT publishers to produce, rather than whole games. I don't see the logic that "it would hurt WotC" if WotC wanted such a thing.

 

[Seanchai]

I know Seanchai is on vacation right now, but...what? 8 years of the OGL and he cites two products from year one as evidence of his "plenty" of crummy d20?

There are plenty more than that. Naming a couple that folks almost universally hail as bad products is a good way to keep the thread from turning into a bunch of folks crawling out of the woodwork, saying, "But I like the Complete Barmaid. Sure it was missing about ten pages out of the middle and the art was crayon drawings, but I used the heck out of it in my games."

But you're right - the first few years were the worst. Of course, that's because there were fewer and fewer publishers as the years marched on. Which means consumers weren't reaping the supposed benefits of the OGL: a wide field of products to choose from.

Seanchai

 

[Seanchai]

You are making the same "proof by inference" mistake with your third statement, saying the executives are ignoring facts, compounding it by calling them "out of touch" and that they are "ignoring facts".

And when folks tell us about how Monte Cook must feel about 4e and GSL.

Seanchai