D&D 5E So, 5e OGL

[CapnZapp]

Out of a group of seven players, three of mine owned a Pathfinder core book. Two were GMs, one was a collector. The other four used either PFSRD, an app version of the PRD, or something similar. Why not? It was everything but the Golarion deities. Now, for 5e, they can't do that unless they only want a limited selection of subraces, subclasses, spells, and one feat.

What can I tell you? Your friends suck.

No, but seriously. I honestly don't know why you're pursuing this.

 

[MoonSong]

It is not intended to be useful to the individual player of the game. It is a reference for writers and publishers, not players.

If it just was rtfs instead of a pdf, it would be more useful for publishing.

Do you think the existence of the PFSRD may have led to games that in turn lead to people buying the core book?

There is a Neil Gaiman short essay on piracy somewhere out there. He said that a lot of his stuff was pirated in Russia (??) and then his sales went up nicely there.
The point is not that there are not people with unpaid copies, the point is that there were more total paid copies.

I have zero proof that this model worked for PF. But I bet it did. And, more importantly, your evidence of having not bought it does not make a case AGAINST more sales, it shows that you were playing the game and contributing to the marketplace from which more sales are born.

Out of a group of seven players, three of mine owned a Pathfinder core book. Two were GMs, one was a collector. The other four used either PFSRD, an app version of the PRD, or something similar. Why not? It was everything but the Golarion deities. Now, for 5e, they can't do that unless they only want a limited selection of subraces, subclasses, spells, and one feat.

A single answer to both. Pathfinder seems to do most of its money from "whales", high spending players/collectors that get everything. The rest of the people who play for free just create an environment where whales want to live, so by bringing people who won't spend into the game, they make the game more comfortable and attractive for players who spend a lot on it. In a way every player playing is money on their pockets, even the freeloaders.

 

[BryonD]

A single answer to both. Pathfinder seems to do most of its money from "whales", high spending players/collectors that get everything. The rest of the people who play for free just create an environment where whales want to live, so by bringing people who won't spend into the game, they make the game more comfortable and attractive for players who spend a lot on it. In a way every player playing is money on their pockets, even the freeloaders.

This does not answer my question at all.

Your statement could be completely wrong or it could perfectly define the foundation of PF's success. It still doesn't answer the question I asked.

 

[BryonD]

I think it did, but I think it also left a lot of sales on the table to make it so.

I believe this to be the weak point in your position.

If 10 potential players hear of PF because of the popularity which is driven by the free support, and 2 of them buy it, then you have gone from 0 out of 0 to 2 out of 10. That is +2 and it isn't reasonable to take a person who was never going to buy the book anyway and classify them as a "left on the table" sale.

 

[Hussar]

Isn't this basically the free to play model that many apps and online games use? Seems like a pretty successful model.

 

[mips42]

There you go

Well that was quick.

 

[delericho]

I'll put this simply. Can you or can you not play in a 3.x game with nothing but the SRD? Can you not run a 3.x game with nothing but the SRD? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding "yes."

There are a couple of things deliberately missing from the 3e SRD intended to prevent this: character creation and advancement, the XP-for-challenges table, encounter building, and a few more things I'm probably forgetting. Most of this is stuff that an experienced DM can go without - certainly, I could run a game with just the SRD since I know enough of that stuff by heart that I could fill in the gaps (or just don't use, as I do with XP-for-challenges, for example). But a newcomer to the game probably could not.

I think, but am not certain, that the Pathfinder SRD does have everything you need. And there are also some Open Content workarounds in some of the 3pp books - in particular, I think the Mongoose "Pocket PHB/DMG" books had character creation material (though I've not looked in a long time).

 

[CapnZapp]

Conveniently, that is exactly the stuff you don't need

Meaning:

I don't bother with xp calculations and awards, I award levels when it feels appropriate.

I don't use the CR and ECL type of stuff, since that's useless.

So no wonder the SRD3 omissions weren't a problem - they actually made the game better!

 

[TwoSix]

I believe this to be the weak point in your position.

If 10 potential players hear of PF because of the popularity which is driven by the free support, and 2 of them buy it, then you have gone from 0 out of 0 to 2 out of 10. That is +2 and it isn't reasonable to take a person who was never going to buy the book anyway and classify them as a "left on the table" sale.

I have no doubt that the path Paizo chose is the correct one (or at least, a correct one). Their continued success certainly bears that out. I'm just pointing out that Pathfinder works on a freemium model, and that model will always lose some sales somewhere. I'm not asserting that there's a way they could have made more TOTAL sales, just that the sales they gained from the expansion of their network is always somewhat countered by the people (like myself) who take advantage of the free offer for information they might otherwise have paid for.

My only actual point is the very basic point that balancing free and paid material is always going to be the search for some point of maximum sales, and it's a tricky thing to find the tipping point.

 

[delericho]

Conveniently, that is exactly the stuff you don't need

Meaning:

I don't bother with xp calculations and awards, I award levels when it feels appropriate.

I don't use the CR and ECL type of stuff, since that's useless.

I wouldn't necessarily say 'useless', but it's true that those are indeed things that I stopped using myself.

But it's not all stuff you don't need - specifically, some sort of character creation rules are needed. (Which doesn't necessarily mean someone needs a PHB, of course, but they do need something.)