Pramas on the OGL

[Wystan]

Henry describes the opening of a relatively quicker or shorter path. I say that this will only be quicker if the opening does not create more difficult ground in the whole area -due to debris- that will get you more tired and thus have you to stop for longer a rest.

I can say that after 21 years of gaming I still have yet to *EVER* take a significant break, neither have most of my group and the new players that we have absorbed from other groups when we did lose one. I still gave with 3 of the 6 in my original group (4 including me) and 2 additions to that....

 

[xechnao]

I can say that after 21 years of gaming I still have yet to *EVER* take a significant break, neither have most of my group and the new players that we have absorbed from other groups when we did lose one. I still gave with 3 of the 6 in my original group (4 including me) and 2 additions to that....

Ok, but there I was mainly referring to buying Wotc's (new?) products.

 

[Wystan]

Ok, but there I was mainly referring to buying Wotc's (new?) products.

Ok, then I will touch on that... We all own the PHB, I own 5-7 other books 4-5 of them WOTC, our current DM has 40-50 books, most of them WOTC.... The others will buy books if they catch their interest 1-2 per year....

 

[xechnao]

Ok, then I will touch on that... We all own the PHB, I own 5-7 other books 4-5 of them WOTC, our current DM has 40-50 books, most of them WOTC.... The others will buy books if they catch their interest 1-2 per year....

Since we are talking about how 3rd party support may have influenced buying habits I want to make a question to see if I can understand something out of this: do you buy books only for playing-utility reasons or also for other reasons? And if so what are these reasons?

 

[Nellisir]

I don't necessarily disagree. But this misses a broader point: if I'm a freelancer trying to decide if I should write another pitch for Dragon magazine or maybe start applying to law school, the less opportunities there are to freelance the more likely I am to give up on the industry.

And (possibly conversely), the fewer the opportunities the fewer the freelancers and the better the opportunities for determined newcomers. I was actually gunning for "freelancer" status at one point; I got a 2E article published in Dragon ( and several rejections), but a "life change", the WotC buyout, and 3e effectively killed my momentum. By the time I was back up to speed, the pool of visible talent (from the OGL/d20 system) was large enough to intimidate me back into submission silence.

But Dragon became something where, instead of seeing alot of newcomers and one-time authors, I saw the same "high-end" freelancers and WotC employers over and over.

 

[Nellisir]

Since we are talking about how 3rd party support may have influenced buying habits I want to make a question to see if I can understand something out of this: do you buy books only for playing-utility reasons or also for other reasons? And if so what are these reasons?

I buy books to enjoy/compare/steal ideas from. I've got a very extensive 3e library, both print and pdf. More than I'll ever really use, unfortunately. It's another factor in my decision not to go 4e.

 

[catsclaw]

And (possibly conversely), the fewer the opportunities the fewer the freelancers and the better the opportunities for determined newcomers.

Economically speaking, this doesn't happen. If determined newcomers actually were more talented than the existing freelancers (or more driven, or better at negotiating), an efficient market would have discovered them. I realize there were a lot of projects being farmed out to a relatively small number of freelancers, but I think that's mostly indicative of a saturated market.

I'm sure there are some markets where the fewer buyers there are the more sellers pop up, but besides stock panics and government-subsidized agriculture, I'm having difficulty imagining them.

 

[xechnao]

I buy books to enjoy/compare/steal ideas from. I've got a very extensive 3e library, both print and pdf. More than I'll ever really use, unfortunately. It's another factor in my decision not to go 4e.

But you realize that ideas and thus viable products based on ideas are limited to the system they are referring to? So what you are saying is that your plan is to extend a system to its limits and then stop. Not a good plan IMO for the hobby.

 

[Nellisir]

But you realize that ideas and thus viable products based on ideas are limited to the system they are referring to?

So systemless products don't exist? Reality check: ideas extend beyond mechanical rule systems.

So what you are saying is that your plan is to extend a system to its limits and then stop. Not a good plan IMO for the hobby.

Maybe, but I haven't seen a system reach its limits yet. Certainly not 3e, which is a relatively decent universal system, and thus has a high idea potentiality.

 

[SSquirrel]

It's funny I was sorting my gaming books the other night as my shelves had become very scattered and I noticed that my Malhavoc Press section was just as big as my WotC section for 3E. I know I have some other books like the Wheel of Time d20 in storage and not on my shelves, but as far as actual WotC books, settings like FR, etc, I have just as much Malhavoc.

I never saw a drastic need to upgrade my core books from 3 to 3.5 and WotC produced a lot of books that I just didn't need. I already had the 5 original splatbooks and eventually the hardcover Complete series came out and just updated a lot of what I already had. A lot of that 3.5 stuff came out after we had lost our gaming group and we haven't really had a group for about 3 years now. It's been hard for me to get too into any of my books knowing that I don't have anyone to play the games with at the moment.

Catsclaw>That could have also been her misspeaking and referring to the GSL. Someone at WotC then saw her comment and directed her to not comment any further until they are ready to release more info on the GSL. All speculation on my part, but something that has been known to happen in various industries.