Was WotC On to Something When They Dumped the 3.x OGL?

[S'mon]

Dumping the OGL for 4e helped create the 4e disaster - there was a lack of third party support (adventures, settings), combined with poor quality adventures from WotC. They would have been much better sticking with it IMO. The result was that people stuck with 3e then went over to Pathfinder.

5e uses the OGL and is doing very well, though I'm not sure the causal relationship is very strong. Conversely the OGL definitely helped 3e I think, with the enormous amount of available content.

So I would say the answer is no.

I think Paizo's problems are (a) the Pathfinder brand is much weaker than D&D, (b) Paizo have never been good at rules design, and (c) 5e D&D is well designed, especially for bringing in new players. Obviously without the OGL Pathfinder would not exist, but Paizo is a bit stuck now. Their hardcore fans want crunch and aren't interested in 5e, but the growth market is in material for 5e. I would think their best bet would be publishing 5e versions of their APs combined with continuing to support original Pathfinder for the legacy fans, rather than a new edition of PF.

 

[S'mon]

*Basic* 5e was released under the OGL, which to a quick scan doesn't appear particularly different from past OGLs. .

No,
1. Basic 5e is not OGL. The 5e SRD is OGL - http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/SRD-OGL_V1.1.pdf - but it is quite different from the Basic 5e rules, which preceded it. The 5e SRD includes all the PHB classes (1 path each), and most of the Monster Manual, I think all the DMG magic items. But only 1 Feat.
2. As Morrus has noted, there is only the 1.0 OGL from 2000.

 

[trancejeremy]

The OGL was originally a way for WOTC to deal with two things they saw as potential issues with their new third edition.

Firstly, they viewed things like adventures as products that didn't sell all that well to be viable for a large company, but something that some people wanted and probably healthy for a product line.

Secondly they remembered what Mayfair had did with their Role-Aids line (being advertised as being compatible with AD&D)

The OGL was a way of them to let 3rd parties handle what WOTC considered beneath them, I guess, and because of the clause prohibiting mention of compatibility without an additional license (the D20 System Trademark License), give them some control over the competition.

I guess because they weren't sure how well it would be supported, they started working with 3rd parties and had a draft System Rules Document (SRD) for like a year before 3e launched. I think the problem was is they didn't realize that people (and companies) were willing to produce more than adventures. They presumably got something of a shock when White Wolf (under their Sword & Sorcery label) rushed out a monster book before WOTC put out the monster manual.

I think the big difference is that when they launched 5e, they held off on releasing the 5e SRD (which is what is "open content" and thus allowable for 3rd parties to use) for at least a year after all the books came out. Maybe 2 years? This gave them time for their own official products to be firmly planted and put a stop to any sort of goldrush that was found in the 3e days. So instead of startups making 5e products (like in the 3e days), it's mostly established companies moving from PF (or from their own systems, in some cases, like Troll Lord and Goodman) to 5e. (We've also seen some fairly wholesale adaptions to 5e, like Adventures in Middle Earth)

Paizo's problems with PF2 is probably not related to the OGL, but perhaps the 3e rules system. Originally Pathfinder was 3e for people who liked 3e and didn't want to move on from it to 4e. But what's the market for Pathfinder 2? It's far enough from 3e that it doesn't feel like 3e. And for people who don't like 3e to begin with, they have 5e. (Oddly, 4e fans seem to like PF2, though they also have 13th Age)

There's also the innate problem with game systems. You have core rules. Then you have splatbooks. Then you do a new edition and sell another core rules and splatbooks with new versions of the same classes/race/monster etc. Paizo avoided this for a long time by simply spreading out the game system, constantly adding new classes and races and monster books. But now that they are facing a new edition, they face the problem that people who liked something from one of the splatbooks might have to wait for years to play that class or use that race in the new edition.

All I need to say is that if it were not for the OGL then we would all be stuck with whatever the couple of guys at WotC can come up with.

Which knowing Hasbros history could be the RPG equivalent of forever reprinting different coloured Monoploy games.

Ah, but these days Hasbro licenses IP and brands Monopoly with them.

Like a couple weeks ago at the store I work at, we had someone come in looking for Game of Thrones Monopoly. We didn't have it, but we did have about 2 pallets worth of Fortnite Monopoly.

 

[Voadam]

Looking over my PDFs, I have about twice as much OGL 5e PDFs (so not counting DM's Guild PDFs) as all of my 4e 3rd party PDFs under their limited license. For 3e/PF OGL PDFs I have about 30 times as much.

I liked 4e, but there is a lot less stuff for it without an SRD under the OGL.

 

[billd91]

(Oddly, 4e fans seem to like PF2, though they also have 13th Age)

Not so odd, I'm thinking. Paizo has a few people who worked on 4e working for them now in their development of PF2. The influence is showing, unfortunately. But I'll give it a go just like I did with 4e.

 

[Shasarak]

Ah, but these days Hasbro licenses IP and brands Monopoly with them.

Like a couple weeks ago at the store I work at, we had someone come in looking for Game of Thrones Monopoly. We didn't have it, but we did have about 2 pallets worth of Fortnite Monopoly.

Exactly, so imagine the new 2019 DnD - it has a Fortnite cover! Yeah!

Paizo's problems with PF2 is probably not related to the OGL, but perhaps the 3e rules system. Originally Pathfinder was 3e for people who liked 3e and didn't want to move on from it to 4e. But what's the market for Pathfinder 2?

People that like playing DnD but want more character choices?

 

[billd91]

People that like playing DnD but want more character choices?

Also, I think, people who like Paizo's APs and play them in the PF1 rules but are interested in seeing what Paizo can do without the constraints of the 3e engine.

 

[Umbran]

1. Basic 5e is not OGL. The 5e SRD is OGL - http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/SRD-OGL_V1.1.pdf - but it is quite different from the Basic 5e rules, which preceded it. The 5e SRD includes all the PHB classes (1 path each), and most of the Monster Manual, I think all the DMG magic items. But only 1 Feat.

Fair, though as I recall, previous versions of the 5e SRD had more limited content, more akin to what's in Basic. I glanced at the license, but I didn't probe into the content yesterday.

2. As Morrus has noted, there is only the 1.0 OGL from 2000.

If you wanna be really picky, WotC uses version 1.0a, released in 2000. I was not confident enough that *NO OTHER* versions existed out there to assert such.

 

[Voadam]

The OGL was originally a way for WOTC to deal with two things they saw as potential issues with their new third edition.

Firstly, they viewed things like adventures as products that didn't sell all that well to be viable for a large company, but something that some people wanted and probably healthy for a product line.

Secondly they remembered what Mayfair had did with their Role-Aids line (being advertised as being compatible with AD&D)

The OGL was a way of them to let 3rd parties handle what WOTC considered beneath them, I guess, and because of the clause prohibiting mention of compatibility without an additional license (the D20 System Trademark License), give them some control over the competition.

They said at the time it was dual purpose.

One to keep D&D alive in perpetuity. This worked when WotC went 4e and Paizo stepped in to keep 3.5 going under the OGL.

Two was support material to boost their D&D as the dominant game. This looked successful to me.

I guess because they weren't sure how well it would be supported, they started working with 3rd parties and had a draft System Rules Document (SRD) for like a year before 3e launched. I think the problem was is they didn't realize that people (and companies) were willing to produce more than adventures. They presumably got something of a shock when White Wolf (under their Sword & Sorcery label) rushed out a monster book before WOTC put out the monster manual.

Just like TSR got a shock when Chaosium put out All the Worlds' Monsters before TSR got out their Monster Manual.

I think the big difference is that when they launched 5e, they held off on releasing the 5e SRD (which is what is "open content" and thus allowable for 3rd parties to use) for at least a year after all the books came out. Maybe 2 years? This gave them time for their own official products to be firmly planted and put a stop to any sort of goldrush that was found in the 3e days. So instead of startups making 5e products (like in the 3e days), it's mostly established companies moving from PF (or from their own systems, in some cases, like Troll Lord and Goodman) to 5e. (We've also seen some fairly wholesale adaptions to 5e, like Adventures in Middle Earth)

This delay was just like 4e for me all over again, both times it delayed me buying and diving into the new editions for years until my group got into them. The 3e srd was fantastic for learning the new edition at the time and for looking up rules while the lack of one for 4e and the tons of missing core content in the 5e one meant they did not serve the same purpose.

Paizo's problems with PF2 is probably not related to the OGL, but perhaps the 3e rules system. Originally Pathfinder was 3e for people who liked 3e and didn't want to move on from it to 4e. But what's the market for Pathfinder 2? It's far enough from 3e that it doesn't feel like 3e. And for people who don't like 3e to begin with, they have 5e. (Oddly, 4e fans seem to like PF2, though they also have 13th Age).

PF2 seems to be for those who felt that 3e d20 just was not fiddly enough.

There's also the innate problem with game systems. You have core rules. Then you have splatbooks. Then you do a new edition and sell another core rules and splatbooks with new versions of the same classes/race/monster etc. Paizo avoided this for a long time by simply spreading out the game system, constantly adding new classes and races and monster books. But now that they are facing a new edition, they face the problem that people who liked something from one of the splatbooks might have to wait for years to play that class or use that race in the new edition.

Paizo also avoided it by developing a ton of adventures, adventure paths, and setting material as a big core of what they were about and sold. There were a lot more adventures for Pathfinder than there were for any white wolf game I can think of.