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Something to consider about Grognards and the OGL...
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<blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 8901880" data-attributes="member: 2209"><p>Been through this type of stuff before with WotC and their pendulum swings.</p><p></p><p>4e they cut off access to the old edition PDFs they had been selling to try and direct everyone to buy the new books any way they could including cutting off old D&D stuff. There was even the corporate messaging misdirection "We are cutting off legal PDF sales to combat piracy!" Which left only pirate copies if you wanted PDFs. This significantly ticked me off, I had been regularly buying D&D PDFs from WotC and they cut that off in an attempt to control where I spent my money, an attempt to drive my purchases to the new edition physical books. I instead switched to just buying other companies' PDFs and continuing to play 3.5 D&D.</p><p></p><p>4e also had no OGL, so you couldn't use an SRD to get into the new edition the way you could with 3.5, you had to buy the books first to check out the edition. So I didn't, I kept playing what I had and buying stuff from other companies. In 3.0 and 3.5 I was using the SRD as a player and DM and buying stuff from WotC and their licensees (Ravenloft stuff from Arthaus), plus OGL stuff. WotC was making it more difficult to get in as a D&D player so they could try and control more of the market and extract more money from customers. I was angry at them and chose to spend my money elsewhere.</p><p></p><p>Eventually they had the GSL which initially had a poison pill clause to cut out old and new OGL stuff. Later once nobody picked it up, they revised the license to remove the poison pill clause and just have terrible revocable and changeable terms at any time for WotC to control stuff heavily. A few started to use this license, but it was very few and fairly limited especially compared to the 3.5 OGL output at the time. So I was not tempted by a lot of GSL stuff, I kept spending money on OGL and non-D&D PDFs.</p><p></p><p>Eventually they had a PDF with basic rules out so you could check out the 4e system. I did and liked it. Once I joined a group that was playing 4e I bought an amazon deal on the first two PHs and enjoyed the system. I am a fan of the 4e rules system. I still spent a lot of my RPG budget on OGL and non-D&D stuff in the 4e era because of the lack of 4e PDFs and limited GSL PDFs.</p><p></p><p>Eventually WotC reinstated most D&D PDFs on DriveThru (but not on Paizo), and with 5e they eventually made it OGL with a bare bones SRD so there is a lot of great 5e OGL material. I like 5e and these were positive steps in the right direction for me.</p><p></p><p>Now we are back to WotC being adversarial to me as a customer, trying to actively cut off stuff I like and want so they can exert more control over the market and attempt to extract more money from their customers.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Voadam, post: 8901880, member: 2209"] Been through this type of stuff before with WotC and their pendulum swings. 4e they cut off access to the old edition PDFs they had been selling to try and direct everyone to buy the new books any way they could including cutting off old D&D stuff. There was even the corporate messaging misdirection "We are cutting off legal PDF sales to combat piracy!" Which left only pirate copies if you wanted PDFs. This significantly ticked me off, I had been regularly buying D&D PDFs from WotC and they cut that off in an attempt to control where I spent my money, an attempt to drive my purchases to the new edition physical books. I instead switched to just buying other companies' PDFs and continuing to play 3.5 D&D. 4e also had no OGL, so you couldn't use an SRD to get into the new edition the way you could with 3.5, you had to buy the books first to check out the edition. So I didn't, I kept playing what I had and buying stuff from other companies. In 3.0 and 3.5 I was using the SRD as a player and DM and buying stuff from WotC and their licensees (Ravenloft stuff from Arthaus), plus OGL stuff. WotC was making it more difficult to get in as a D&D player so they could try and control more of the market and extract more money from customers. I was angry at them and chose to spend my money elsewhere. Eventually they had the GSL which initially had a poison pill clause to cut out old and new OGL stuff. Later once nobody picked it up, they revised the license to remove the poison pill clause and just have terrible revocable and changeable terms at any time for WotC to control stuff heavily. A few started to use this license, but it was very few and fairly limited especially compared to the 3.5 OGL output at the time. So I was not tempted by a lot of GSL stuff, I kept spending money on OGL and non-D&D PDFs. Eventually they had a PDF with basic rules out so you could check out the 4e system. I did and liked it. Once I joined a group that was playing 4e I bought an amazon deal on the first two PHs and enjoyed the system. I am a fan of the 4e rules system. I still spent a lot of my RPG budget on OGL and non-D&D stuff in the 4e era because of the lack of 4e PDFs and limited GSL PDFs. Eventually WotC reinstated most D&D PDFs on DriveThru (but not on Paizo), and with 5e they eventually made it OGL with a bare bones SRD so there is a lot of great 5e OGL material. I like 5e and these were positive steps in the right direction for me. Now we are back to WotC being adversarial to me as a customer, trying to actively cut off stuff I like and want so they can exert more control over the market and attempt to extract more money from their customers. [/QUOTE]
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