D&D 5E So, 5e OGL

[adamc]

This is a semantic distinction...

<peeve>
Semantic distinctions are distinctions in meaning. I'm guessing you meant something different.
</peeve>

In my mind, the biggest advantage of the OGL isn't about third party publishers creating supporting content (thought that is nice), but for fans to create and distribute content as needed with the confidence that they aren't doing anything illegal. Under the OGL, I could create an slightly modified version of the Barbarian and post it online, or build a few custom spells, or even create a spellbook webapp using official content. Not for profit, but because I think it would benefit me and the community.

I agree with this, and it is a notable failing in 4e.

These all seems like a moot point.

You can reproduce enough of the game using the existing OGL, that there is no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Agree here too. Regardless of whether they were smart in offering the initial OGL, it is out now and they have to compete with it.

 

[Mistwell]

<peeve>
Semantic distinctions are distinctions in meaning. I'm guessing you meant something different.
</peeve>.

This too is an issue of semantics. He did not mean by semantics, what you meant by semantics

 

[Alzrius]

not really...

Imagine if (and I don't really know morrus so I am going out on a limb) Morrus negotiated a licence for spelljammer... then he went and published 1 book per quarter...

That's moving the goalposts pretty significantly in terms of what we're discussing. WotC's stake changes significantly if it's licensing actual Intellectual Properties, rather than licensing game mechanics. (Incidentally, they have done exactly the sort of scenario you're discussing here before, during the 3.X era with Dragonlance and Ravenloft - including, I believe, reviewing products before they were released.)

Remove that aspect of the equation, however - which brings it back into line with what's been discussed so far - and this still fails to answer the question of why WotC would bother with individually-negotiated licenses for any and every third-party company that wanted to make compatible products. Simply put, no one has offered a good answer for this. There's no plausible explanation for why WotC would want to expend that much time and effort to make sure that someone else's products are quality material.

If they wanted to adopt something like that, it's more likely that they'd simply not make any kind of community license at all, instead pursuing individual licenses with specific companies as they wanted. It'd basically be a return to the pre-3.X era of compatibility.

*shrug*. I think the question depends upon the publisher's goals. If the publisher wants, in essence, to have its own game that folks buy, without customers ever having any need or desire to go back to WotC again, then, yes, the license is defeated. However, I don't think the, "you bought the PHB, and now never have to buy from WotC again" end serves WotC well at all anyway, so I don't see defeating that end is not an issue.

"its own game that folks buy, without customers ever having any need or desire to go back to WotC again" ignores the idea that publishers might want to make compatible products that aren't their own games. There were a lot of stand-alone d20-based games, certainly, but there were plenty that required the Core Rulebooks to play.

I don't expect WotC wants whole new games. Those don't serve WotC much. WotC probably wants support products. Adventures, adventure paths, adventure hooks, occasional really interesting rules supplements, setting and fluff variations. Now, maybe nobody wants to get into that business for WotC, and maybe WotC would be better served with a really active contracting program. Then, you get no licenses at all.

Saying "well, maybe nobody wants to make compatible products that requires the Core Rulebooks" is a scenario that fails the plausibility test. We don't have to look back very far to see that there were plenty of companies putting out loads of materials that did require the actual D&D rules.

Mr. Dancy spoke to WotC's ends nearly a decade and a half ago. The world has changed. And, he has made it very clear, he was serving ends that were not actually WotC's! Maybe WotC has seen a problem with that since?

The world has changed, but it has also stayed the same. Also, Ryan Dancey made it very clear that he was serving ends that were, in fact, WotC's, alongside everyone else's. He flat-out says in one of his interviews (which I can't seem to find at the moment) that there were multiple reasons for making the OGL. One of them (for the hobbyists and fans) was that D&D would have an "insurance policy" in case WotC tried to kill it. Another (for WotC) was the market of compatible products that served as satellite products that would lead folks back to the Core Rules.

WotC did see a problem with that since, hence the GSL. Maybe since then, WotC has seen a bigger problem with their response, and is now ready to go back to the OGL?

 

[Morrus]

He flat-out says in one of his interviews (which I can't seem to find at the moment)

That sounds like mission for... your mouse's scroll wheel! Look back a few posts!

 

[Mistwell]

The world has changed, but it has also stayed the same. Also, Ryan Dancey made it very clear that he was serving ends that were, in fact, WotC's, alongside everyone else's.

He was wrong though on that. It guaranteed D&D could never smoothly move on to another edition. Without the ability to end support for the prior edition, it guaranteed a greater fracture in the marketplace and community than would have existed without it...and the fracture in the marketplace and community did not serve WOTCs interests.

They needed a shut-off valve of some kind - something that could end the OGL eventually, but distant enough in the future that 3rd parties would still want to use it when it came out. Like a 15 year shut-off or something like that. Indefinite licensing in exchange for a very finite boost was not a good deal for WOTC. They were never going to publish under the same edition forever, under any rational scenario.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That's moving the goalposts pretty significantly in terms of what we're discussing. WotC's stake changes significantly if it's licensing actual Intellectual Properties, rather than licensing game mechanics. (Incidentally, they have done exactly the sort of scenario you're discussing here before, during the 3.X era with Dragonlance and Ravenloft - including, I believe, reviewing products before they were released.)

fine replace the word spelljammer with space D&D and the words Dark Sun with Mad Max D&D... same thing...

Saying "well, maybe nobody wants to make compatible products that requires the Core Rulebooks" is a scenario that fails the plausibility test. We don't have to look back very far to see that there were plenty of companies putting out loads of materials that did require the actual D&D rules.

mean while in the real world they want to let people do that AND still maintain some control... almost like a quick approval process would help...

He was wrong though on that. It guaranteed D&D could never smoothly move on to another edition. Without the ability to end support for the prior edition, it guaranteed a greater fracture in the marketplace and community than would have existed without it...and the fracture in the marketplace and community did not serve WOTCs interests.

this 100% this... I think every discussion of pros and cons of the OGL needs this in it...

They needed a shut-off valve of some kind - something that could end the OGL eventually, but distant enough in the future that 3rd parties would still want to use it when it came out. Like a 15 year shut-off or something like that. Indefinite licensing in exchange for a very finite boost was not a good deal for WOTC. They were never going to publish under the same edition forever, under any rational scenario.

again the problem in my mind is they figured everyone would say "OK, lets not cause waves, we can move on..." not "Hey we can totally make money by wideneing the edition war by playing to the vocal minority on the internet..."

 

[MoonSong]

maybe... but 4e wasn't as dramatic as people like to pretend.

Forgive me for saying this, but it was a huge deal. 4e is a great game, but it cannot be compared to the toolbox quality 3.5 gives. Meachanic-flavor dissociation is such a drastic paradigm change from the previous editions. Extreme hardcoding of archetypes meant the removal of lots and lots of character concepts that forever will be impossible to make under 4e but were fairly easy to do in 3.5 Where is Greyhawk? where is the Great wheel? what happened to the non-warring deities? Where did the Aasimar go? What happened to stone-age, bronze -age and futuristic campaigns? what happened to non-combatants? What happened with all of the worldbuilding stuff? A core-core comparation leads to the conclusion that 4e was less worldbuilding, more fighting. To date I refuse to play on a core-only 4e game, but gladly play on a core-only 2e, or 3e, or 3.5 game. Now I know 4e is extremely hackable, but it came wrapped on lots of "don't touch" warnings that discouraged many DM's from doing so. previous editions came with lots and lots of optional rules encouraging the DM to customize the game, so 4e was really a huge departure.

It allowed a rival to cash in on the edition war (making it worse then ever in the process) and basicly take 10ish years of wotc hard work and cash in on it... love pathfinder or hate it, it is still a series of codified house rules (some ok, some great, some terrible) for the system someone else made.

A rival that only one year before was WoTC biggest cheerleader and got marginalized by the change in direction. Had they extended Paizo a good license right away when they took the magazines from them and enough advanced information so they didn't have to rely on a single designer's opinion in a public event about a new game they knew nothing about while nearing the deadline for the event that represented a huge part of their income, it would have been another story. The OGL was the weapon, but Wotc gave Paizo both the motive and opportunity to use that weapon. Go ahead, put a loaded gun on the table while telling your live-in girlfriend of many years that you are leaving her to marry someone else, emptied your shared bank account and posted indecent pictures of her in the internet and then turn your back at her. When she shoots you in the back, was it the gun's fault? Or your fault by pissing her off and turning your back at her expecting her to bow down and beg you not to leave while leaving a loaded gun easily accessible in a visible place?

WotC tried to grow the brand and move the game forward correcting large issues(lfqw,outdated rules) complained about by a group of very loud and vocal fans.

Corrected that for you

 

[darjr]

He was wrong though on that. It guaranteed D&D could never smoothly move on to another edition. Without the ability to end support for the prior edition, it guaranteed a greater fracture in the marketplace and community than would have existed without it...and the fracture in the marketplace and community did not serve WOTCs interests.

They needed a shut-off valve of some kind - something that could end the OGL eventually, but distant enough in the future that 3rd parties would still want to use it when it came out. Like a 15 year shut-off or something like that. Indefinite licensing in exchange for a very finite boost was not a good deal for WOTC. They were never going to publish under the same edition forever, under any rational scenario.

Who is they? Not I. The OGL prevented this kind of forced drastic edition change, it stymied this heavy handedness. It did what he thought it would do. Without it I think 4e would have caused a WORSE schism in the hobby.

Folks would not have turned away from 4e they would have turned away from D&D and maybe even the hobby.

 

[jsaving]

He was wrong though on that. It guaranteed D&D could never smoothly move on to another edition. Without the ability to end support for the prior edition, it guaranteed a greater fracture in the marketplace and community than would have existed without it...and the fracture in the marketplace and community did not serve WOTCs interests.

They needed a shut-off valve of some kind

That's exactly the kind of thinking Dancey was fighting against when he created the OGL.

The OGL absolutely didn't "guarantee" that a new edition would fail. Rather, it guaranteed that if WotC elected to muscle through a new edition that was judged inferior by a significant chunk of the gaming community and then tried to make obsolete the core books people had purchased, then there would be a way for third-party publishers to step in and provide support for those disenchanted gamers.

All WotC had to do to avoid this fracture was produce an edition most gamers would want to play. Instead, they panicked and tried to remove as many vestiges of 3e as they could from the new rules so existing resources like the SRD would be useless, because with their post-Dancey central-planning mentality they had become afraid of how strong third-party publishers might become. Then WotC tried to use its market power and brand name to force the switch to an edition they knew or at least should have known would leave a large chunk of the gaming community dissatisfied, ironically creating the very entity -- Pathfinder -- whose creation they were hoping to prevent.

The main argument against this seems to be that any new edition would fracture the gaming community unless accompanied by enough strong-arm tactics on the part of WotC to make people move -- but I think this is a gross misreading of history. People embraced 1st edition AD&D because it provided a vastly better role-playing experience than what had come before; they embraced 2e because it fixed some 1e problems while retaining its spirit; they embraced 3e for the same reason. (Of course there are some people who didn't make the switch, but most did.) 4e was the only time in the game's history where a huge chunk was dissatisfied with what WotC had produced, but this dissatisfaction occurred because of WotC's strategic decisions in developing 4e and not because the OGL somehow prevented WotC from "doing what had to be done" and forcing people into an upgrade they might not want. Had they produced an edition people found more appealing, as they did with 1e and 2e and 3e, then there wouldn't even have been a critical mass of gamers from which Pathfinder could emerge.

I do agree that once WotC decided that they needed centralized control of the D&D marketplace and needed to force everyone to drop 3e in favor of 4e, the OGL hindered their ability to get it done. But it doesn't seem reasonable to blame the OGL for the exceptionally poor strategic judgment that led them to this decision in the first place.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Forgive me for saying this, but it was a huge deal.

oh, ok lets go at this again...

4e is a great game, but it cannot be compared to the toolbox quality 3.5 gives.

4e give ME more options then 3.5 did... infact I can make more unquie settings and characters with just phb1 of 4e then half of 3.5 put togather...

Meachanic-flavor dissociation is such a drastic paradigm change from the previous editions.

as they did in 2e to 3e...

Extreme hardcoding of archetypes meant the removal of lots and lots of character concepts that forever will be impossible to make under 4e but were fairly easy to do in 3.5

Where is Greyhawk?

same place it always was???

where is the Great wheel?

um I'm missing your point you can use a great wheel in 4e...

what happened to the non-warring deities?

they are there... did you miss ioun? you can also transplant any deity with ease...

Where did the Aasimar go?

oh no 1 race gone... replaced with deva...

What happened to stone-age, bronze -age and futuristic campaigns?

Darksun was great (not quite stone age) I ran both scifi and modern (based on Dresden files) games with 4e with ease..

what happened to non-combatants?

we didn't waste time putting combat stats on them? instead they were just there for there roles??

What happened with all of the worldbuilding stuff?

it is all there

A core-core comparation leads to the conclusion that 4e was less worldbuilding, more fighting. To date I refuse to play on a core-only 4e game, but gladly play on a core-only 2e, or 3e, or 3.5 game. Now I know 4e is extremely hackable, but it came wrapped on lots of "don't touch" warnings that discouraged many DM's from doing so. previous editions came with lots and lots of optional rules encouraging the DM to customize the game, so 4e was really a huge departure.

all of that sounds like the basic sour grapes I couldn't figure out why until I kept reading

A rival that only one year before was WoTC biggest cheerleader and got marginalized by the change in direction. Had they extended Paizo a good license right away when they took the magazines from them and enough advanced information so they didn't have to rely on a single designer's opinion in a public event about a new game they knew nothing about while nearing the deadline for the event that represented a huge part of their income, it would have been another story. The OGL was the weapon, but Wotc gave Paizo both the motive and opportunity to use that weapon. Go ahead, put a loaded gun on the table while telling your live-in girlfriend of many years that you are leaving her to marry someone else, emptied your shared bank account and posted indecent pictures of her in the internet and then turn your back at her. When she shoots you in the back, was it the gun's fault? Or your fault by pissing her off and turning your back at her expecting her to bow down and beg you not to leave while leaving a loaded gun easily accessible in a visible place?

your analogy is perfect... in that scenero the girlfriend (Piazo) commeted the wrong... not the guy saying 'goodbye'. infact it is the exact type of over reaction we see here

Corrected that for you

that is the hight of rudeness right there... you corrected nothing you changed things the way you would to once again throw wotc and it's fans in a bad light instead of trying to see the entire point of view presented... in doing show proveing my point...