D&D 5E So, 5e OGL

[Sadras]

(Where this theory starts to fall apart is when people started putting out their own standalone games that didn't require the PHB for use. Or, in the most extreme case, Mongoose's "Pocket Player's Handbook", which was a digest-sized book that effectively just reprinted the PHB rules and thus cut out WotC entirely, at a minimum development cost to them.)
Of course, lots of things have changed in 15 years. That logic may now be altered, or may not hold at all.

That doesn't sound at all lucrative for WoTC, I can't blame them for not having an OGL. Without Royalties for using their materials (which is incredibly difficult to monitor) the benefit to them is pointless.
Perhaps the myriad of posters commenting on the lack of OGL agreement in 4e and 5e should rather concentrate on how an OGL would be beneficial to WoTC.

Adventures are bought predominantly by DMs, DMs predominantly purchase the 3 core rulesbooks (who buy them anyways), so the only one who really benefits from non-WoTC modules is non-WoTC companies/individuals.
Sorry to say but based on the above, a no OGL for 5e makes good commercial sense, not unless there are Royalties involved. Can anyone else a better reward system for WoTC? I'm drawing a blank.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That doesn't sound at all lucrative for WoTC, I can't blame them for not having an OGL. Without Royalties for using their materials (which is incredibly difficult to monitor) the benefit to them is pointless.

Perhaps the myriad of posters commenting on the lack of OGL agreement in 4e and 5e should rather concentrate on how an OGL would be beneficial to WoTC.

Adventures are bought predominantly by DMs, DMs predominantly purchase the 3 core rulesbooks (who buy them anyways), so the only one who really benefits from non-WoTC modules is non-WoTC companies/individuals.

Sorry to say but based on the above, a no OGL for 5e makes good commercial sense, not unless there are Royalties involved. Can anyone else a better reward system for WoTC? I'm drawing a blank.

You may want to think about this a little harder. Busy DMs run systems with strong, attractive adventure/AP support. 4E never had this. Pathfinder did, and it's a big part of why it did so well.

 

[Sadras]

You may want to think about this a little harder. Busy DMs run systems with strong, attractive adventure/AP support. 4E never had this. Pathfinder did, and it's a big part of why it did so well.

Are you saying WoTC should invest in designing Adventure Paths - with DMs creating supporting material, therefore making the AP lucrative too (naturally for more WoTC purchases)? So not just selling the core rule books but APs as well.
Have I got that right?

 

[Morrus]

Are you saying WoTC should invest in designing Adventure Paths - with DMs creating supporting material, therefore making the AP lucrative too (naturally for more WoTC purchases)? So not just selling the core rule books but APs as well.
Have I got that right?

It is very hard for WotC to make a wide spread of adventures profitable, for various reasons. Smaller companies can do it easily, partly for those same reasons, and partly because they spread the load across a hundred companies. Therefore, to create a robust and wide support industry for your game, you allow smaller companies to do the smaller stuff.

Apple does exactly that. It can't create a hundred thousand apps and make its iPhone incredibly versatile and well-supported. Thousands of app developers can, though. The royalties are gravy on top, but not necessary to the core theory.

 

[Michael Morris]

One of the larger reasons is they just aren't interested in doing a product that won't sell above a certain threshhold. Adventures have trouble reaching that threshhold, largely because only the DM buys them, which is about 1/3rd to 1/5th of the total player pool.

 

[tuxgeo]

My take on the OGL:

WotC was founded by people who loved D&D. Although their first big success was "Magic: the Gathering," they were appalled when they learned that TSR was teetering on the brink of collapse. They wanted to ensure that the existence of D&D would never again be threatened by corporate vacillations, so they released the 3.5E SRD under its OGL in order to ensure that at least one version of the game would survive in perpetuity.

That has now been accomplished: so long as human civilization survives, D&D 3.5E will never die -- at least in the limited version of 3.5E that is presented in the SRD. But this means that WotC doesn't need to do the same thing with 5E, because the very existence of the game (at least in the 3.5E version) is no longer endangered.

Since they don't have to release 5E under an OGL in order to keep the game from disappearing, I suspect that they won't. There is no need for another OGL.

 

[Morrus]

One of the larger reasons is they just aren't interested in doing a product that won't sell above a certain threshhold. Adventures have trouble reaching that threshhold, largely because only the DM buys them, which is about 1/3rd to 1/5th of the total player pool.

It's not that only DMs buy them - only DMs buy DMGs, too, and they sell just fine.

It's the question of specificity. You release 100 adventures. Any given DM needs only one of them. They won't buy all 100. So you're selling the number of DMGs you could sell divided by the number of adventures you produce (well, not really, but it serves its purpose here). That low sales figure results in a net loss, once overheads are accounted for.

Sure, you could sell fewer adventures, raising the sales figures on each one. But then your game starts to look "not well supported".

Now, 100 companies each selling one adventure can each sell only 2000 or 5000 copies and still make a profit. So you still have 100 adventures supporting your game (making it "well supported" instead of "not well-supported") at no cost to WotC. And presto! You have the most well-supported RPG in the world, which makes it an extremely attractive proposition to the gamer.

 

[Lalato]

That's all well and good, but you don't necessarily need an OGL for someone to write an adventure for 5e. It's useful, but not necessary.

Don't get me wrong. If I'm a 3PP, I absolutely want an OGL. However, it works a lot better for WotC to do individual licenses or to have an App Store-like platform where they can control things.

 

[Nellisir]

Perhaps the myriad of posters commenting on the lack of OGL agreement in 4e and 5e should rather concentrate on how an OGL would be beneficial to WoTC.

This has been covered ad infinitum by Ryan Dancey and others. There are a plethora of reasons. The arguments are about which reasons are accurate.

 

[Morrus]

Perhaps the myriad of posters commenting on the lack of OGL agreement in 4e and 5e should rather concentrate on how an OGL would be beneficial to WoTC.

I've attempted to summarize the arguments on today's news page. The two main arguments are Dancey's theory of Network Externalities; plus the economic difficulties with large companies producing niche products. Both are compelling arguments on their own.