The Decade's Best D20/OGL

[IronWolf]

What about just having sidebars or something along the lines of "Using this with Pathfinder"? That seems like a win/win option to me.

This seems a viable option as well. Anything to reduce conversion effort for current players of Pathfinder is a good thing in my opinion.

 

[Krensky]

One major issue is that the best of the OGL from the past ten years isn't d20 or 3.5/PF compatible or related.

M&M, True 20, Spycraft, Fantasy Craft, Mongoose Traveler, RuneQuest II... None of these are really 'updatable' to Pathfinder. Not to mention that Pathfinder is some of the best OGL from the past decade.

 

[Relique du Madde]

One major issue is that the best of the OGL from the past ten years isn't d20 or 3.5/PF compatible or related.

QFT.

As much as I'd like to see a "best of OGL" product, I don't think it should be used as a platform to promote pathfinder (via conversion) since it really downgrades every entry by saying "This game is good... but if you play it using Pathfinder it becomes even better."

 

[jaerdaph]

As much as I'd like to see a "best of OGL" product, I don't think it should be used as a platform to promote pathfinder (via conversion) since it really downgrades every entry by saying "This game is good... but if you play it using Pathfinder it becomes even better."

I don't think it's a question of "better" but rather "economically viable" or "profitable".

A 3.5e rules product is useless to me now as I have moved on to Pathfinder. And I would bet money that most people have moved away from 3.5e entirely as well, if not to Pathfinder than to 4e.

I think a product like this would work best if it stuck with the best of d20/OGL fantasy, for example, rather than include the best of M&M, True20 or Spycraft as well.

 

[IronWolf]

I don't think it's a question of "better" but rather "economically viable" or "profitable".

Yeah, I agree. I didn't intend for my vote on converting to Pathfinder as saying converting it to Pathfinder made it better. Just makes it more applicable and possibly a better tool for the lazy DM who doesn't want to make the conversion himself.

I think a product like this would work best if it stuck with the best of d20/OGL fantasy, for example, rather than include the best of M&M, True20 or Spycraft as well.

I agree with this as well. And that's not an attempt to detract from the quality of M&M, True 20 or Spycraft, just that I think a fantasy book would likely sell more than a book that tried to include all of that.

 

[Relique du Madde]

I don't think it's a question of "better" but rather "economically viable" or "profitable".

Unfortunately you ARE saying that. Think about it for a moment. By only containing "convert to Pathfinder" you are in essence placing Pathfinder before all d20 OGL products/rulesets while insisting that Pathfinder should become the lingua-franca d20 OGL fantasy rule set and should be revered above the d20 OGL SRD itself (now that WoTC moved on to 4e).

It renders that product biased (beyond the obvious editorial assumptions). Now if it publisher X writing with conversion rules to to their own system, I wouldn't question the motives behind doing such a product, but if a publisher Y producing it and having everything convert to only company Z's rules, the cynical part of me starts wondering.

 

[jaerdaph]

Unfortunately you ARE saying that. Think about it for a moment. By only containing "convert to Pathfinder" you are in essence placing Pathfinder before all d20 OGL products. You are saying Pathfinder should become the lingua-franca of the d20 OGL fantasy rule set and should be revered above the d20 OGL SRD itself.

It renders that product biased (beyond the assumption that the editor thing X product is the best of the 2000s). Now if it was Piazo publishing it, I wouldn't question the motives behind doing such a product, but if they weren't responsible then I start wondering why the product is only containing rules to convert to Pathfinder instead of Trial Blazer, d20 SRD, Black Company, Book of Experimental Might, etc.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying if it wants to be economically viable as a commercial product, it would be smart to convert to Pathfinder (or even 4e). The number of people playing 3.5e, Trailblazer, True20, Black Company, etc. are subsets of a subset, niches within a niche.

Personally, I'd love to see a True20 version of this idea, but nobody is actively publishing for True20 anymore, not even Green Ronin. It wouldn't be economically feasible to publish this. Most of the True20 3PPs seem to have moved on to Savage Worlds (another money maker) or Pathfinder.

Speaking of M&M, since that had a compatibility license that 3PPs could use, I bet a Best of 3PP M&M compilation would be very popular.

 

[Glyfair]

The number of people playing 3.5e, Trailblazer, True20, Black Company, etc. are subsets of a subset, niches within a niche.

I would bet against this. I think the group of people playing 3.5 is at least as large as that of the group playing Pathfinder, and likely larger (of course, there is certainly some overlap).

That being said, I think the 3.5 group is much less likely to be a sale of a product than the Pathfinder group. Much of the 3.5 group probably feels they have all they need to game for decades, even without creating their own adventures.

 

[IronWolf]

I would bet against this. I think the group of people playing 3.5 is at least as large as that of the group playing Pathfinder, and likely larger (of course, there is certainly some overlap).

Let me preface that I have no real numbers at all to back this up and that it is pure subjective, by the gut opinion...

But, I would not be surprised if you were right. I suspect a lot of people are playing 3.5 right now, content with the books they have and feeling very little reason to make the jump to Pathfinder. However, I do think this ratio will trend (or continue to trend) to more 3.5 fans moving to Pathfinder.

I think the out of print thing will begin to have a larger and larger impact as time goes on. It isn't as likely to impact the people with large 3.5 collections, but as new players come to the game they very well might only own Pathfinder books. Or be introduced to the game and not want to troll eBay for out of print rulebooks when in a couple of clicks at Amazon have a Pathfinder book winging their way to them with a game designer that actively supports that system. So I suspect the trend will continue to see 3.5 gamers transition to another system over the course of time.

Again, purely speculative, I have no numbers to show to prove this, just an opinion.

That being said, I think the 3.5 group is much less likely to be a sale of a product than the Pathfinder group. Much of the 3.5 group probably feels they have all they need to game for decades, even without creating their own adventures.

This is probably quite true.

 

[jaerdaph]

I would bet against this. I think the group of people playing 3.5 is at least as large as that of the group playing Pathfinder, and likely larger (of course, there is certainly some overlap).

That being said, I think the 3.5 group is much less likely to be a sale of a product than the Pathfinder group. Much of the 3.5 group probably feels they have all they need to game for decades, even without creating their own adventures.

That is probably a very accurate assessment of the 3.5e market.