D&D 4E What will happen if 4E doesn't use the OGL?

[BluSponge]

3.X through the OGL (and its huge number of variants and refinements for all tastes and styles) became such a phenomenon that I can hardly believe a huge proportion of gamers would just follow the move of 4E and give up on the OGL, particularly since it is not revocable and there still will be some people to publish stuff for it, at least during the years of transition.

HA! That's what people said when WotC bought out TSR and the 3e speculation began.

I expect after a year long promotion, people will be leaving in droves and 3e/3.5 will join the ranks of 1st/2nd edition players who cry out why their edition of the game is best to an uncaring, uninterested silent majority.

That is assuming 4x isn't a steaming pile of crap, which its almost guaranteed not to be.

Tom

 

[Odhanan]

I expect after a year long promotion, people will be leaving in droves and 3e/3.5 will join the ranks of 1st/2nd edition players who cry out why their edition of the game is best to an uncaring, uninterested silent majority.

I would agree if there wasn't an OGL involved. With the OGL and third-party publishers which have track records rivaling WotC in quality, there could still be many people interested in the OGL despite a 4E.

If WotC's PR and Marketing is as bad as we've seen lately, and if 4E is not OGL, and if 4E represents a significant break from 3E, this could become a whole another situation. If 4E is so different than 3.5 as to be another game, no thanks, I have and will have all the RPG books, supplements, adventure paths, settings and modules I could want for the next 20 years without having to change the rules yet again.

If however 4E, still not OGL, doesn't change that much from 3.5, then OGL and 4E are still compatible, and nothing's really changed, so why would I get 4E in the first place? *shrug*

I mean, it's well and good to remember past situations and say "hey, you guys are so overreacting!", but when suddenly the situation changes and the outcome is different then everyone's acting like they're surprised.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I think WotC will make a non-OGL 4th edition. I think they realized that the third party publishers provided some help early on after the release of 3e, but since then WotC has ramped up release of their own material. They have concluded that the 3rd party publishers don't add to their bottom line, and might even be taking away from it a small amount.

After release of 4e I predict that WotC will license some third party publishers to produce certain material, possibly adventures only, but they will prevent use of the 4e system to produce products that directly compete with them, like new settings and monster books.

In the meantime, the 3.5 OGL will still be out there and companies will continue to produce for those that do not want to change over to 4e.

4e will, as a result, start out slower than 3e did. Only if the new edition is above and beyond better than 3.5 will it hit the heights that 3e did in its early days. Otherwise a good portion of people will just stick with what they have now (I would say I'm one of these people).

Now, I'm going to go put my awesome powers of prognostication to work on the MegaMillions numbers for tonight. The fact that I have yet to win more than a free ticket in the lottery should serve as a disclaimer about my above predictions.

 

[BluSponge]

If WotC's PR and Marketing is as bad as we've seen lately, and if 4E is not OGL, and if 4E represents a significant break from 3E, this could become a whole another situation. If 4E is so different than 3.5 as to be another game, no thanks, I have and will have all the RPG books, supplements, adventure paths, settings and modules I could want for the next 20 years without having to change the rules yet again.

And again, I stress, this is what people said about 2nd edition when WotC came a-callin'.

If however 4E, still not OGL, doesn't change that much from 3.5, then OGL and 4E are still compatible, and nothing's really changed, so why would I get 4E in the first place? *shrug*

This is true. Its also possible that you could cobble together a reasonable facsimile of 4th edition with the OGL, kinda like the OSRIC (sp?) did with 1st edition. Which is why I suspect there will be some big changes in key areas to differentiate the two editions. Probably not as big as between 2nd and 3rd, but certainly bigger than between 3 and 3.5.

I mean, it's well and good to remember past situations and say "hey, you guys are so overreacting!", but when suddenly the situation changes and the outcome is different then everyone's acting like they're surprised.

Well I don't have any sagely knowledge of what is cooking. Its remotely possible there will never be a 4th edition. That the RPG could be shelved in favor of MMO/CRPG/minis games. All I'm saying is I don't buy the whole "3.5 FOREVER!" line. Gamers will follow the line for new stuff, regardless of how many centuries worth of unused adventure opportunites they have boxed away in the attic. I've no doubt one or two companies left out of the WotC 4e license will try to keep the fires burning, but that initiative will last no longer than a year before it peters out.

And NONE of this prognosticating applies to OGL product like Conan, C&C, True20, M&M, et al. Though I suspect the closer they hew to the SRD, the more they are likely to suffer from a non-OGL 4e release.

Tom

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

It appears to me that WOTC is moving stuff back in house and will not make 4e OGL, and OGL/D20 will pretty much die off. I think they will change the mechanics enough to make compatability an issue thus driving a dagger in the heart of companies trying to make compatable materials. Most people will buy 4e regardless since it is official.

 

[Odhanan]

All I'm saying is I don't buy the whole "3.5 FOREVER!" line.

Oh, me neither. I haven't been playing dozens of different PnP RPGs and am not running a Vampire: The Requiem chronicle outside of my steady D&D diet for nothing! There's no such thing as a "system forever". This is especially since there isn't that I'm saying I see no interest in changing system yet again. I don't think a lot of 3.5 gamers want 4E yet. I may be wrong, but I think the timing is inappropriate. For me it is, no question about it.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'd like to think that if 4E doesn't use the OGL, enough people would depart for different systems to inflict serious commercial harm on WOTC.

Based on what? Most companies stopped supporting d20 compatible products when 3.5 came out and caught the third party publishers with their pants down. "No, we're not going to update this massive bestiary. It'd take too long. Nah, the editions are very similiar. People won't care if it's 3.0/3.5."

How many 3rd party publishers are there now that are d20 compatible straight out of the box? Not many. I don't see a reality where this becomes an actual issue for WoTC.

It's not going to effect games like Runequest, Conan, and Mutants and Masterminds which don't carry the d20 logo and aren't effected by D&D already. It's not going to effect non-d20 games like Warhammer, GURPS, Hero or Serenity.

What I can say for certain is that OSRIC will continue to carry the OGL torch, irrespective of what WOTC do. I'm not certain, but I think it's extremely likely, that C&C, True20 and other systems will also do that, and I think that in this case these systems would expand to fill the gap.

Pretty much what I'm thinking. SRD != OGL Game

 

[Gallo22]

Heck, most of the folks I play with still use 3.0, or maybe I should say 3.25, as we use a little bit from the 3.5 book. We occasionally pick up new books, but usually not until we find them on ebay for $10.00 or so. We just don't see the point of having to have every new book that drops from the sky. If 4.0 did come out, I doubt many of us would buy it. Perhaps I would get the core rules just so I knew what I was doing at the big conventions that would probably stick with the newer version. I guess only time will tell.

 

[Mark CMG]

All I'm saying is I don't buy the whole "3.5 FOREVER!" line.

If you mean that people will not want to always play a 3.5 D&D game I do not disagree. Surely something will come along that will have people interested in trying something different. But I think you might be misreading what some people are meaning. If I am not mistaken, some people are making the point that the OGL is in place forever and that any materials released under will always be available for use under that license. There may even be a great many games that will utilize those OGC materials yet appear to be quite different from 3.5 D&D, some of those might even be the ones that replace D&D in some people's hearts. Of course, I might be misreading what you are saying, too.


To speak more to the point of the thread title -

What will happen if 4E doesn't use the OGL?

Fewer people would be self-publishing, I think, but that is not to say that 4E would be so different from 3.5E so as to make publishing materials that could be used in D&D games particularly difficult. How tough it will be to attract customers without the d20 System License and logo is a matter of debate but, for ePublishers, doesn't seem a huge hurdle. People are always using cross-system materials and once a customer realizes they can use certain materials with little to no conversion at all word gets around fairly quickly. Heck, if you want to go a rout that I always felt uncomfortable exploiting, even one of the guys who was around in the early days with the OGL, and happens to be a lawyer, has always made a point of trotting out the phrase "can be used with the world's most popular roleplaying game" and must figure he can get away with it. I don't think it is a coincidence that phrase has been recently in the posts of the soon-to-be former publisher of the two officially stamped magazines, who recently brought under wing a certain company who likes to tout which edition gives them their feel. So, it probably boils down to just how different 4E is from 3.5 and, to my mind, it would have to be incredibly different to make difficulties for any OGL-based company who still wanted to put out game material that people would find and buy and use for the 4E games.

 

[JVisgaitis]

You'll see a bunch of products that are compatible with 4e that don't sport the d20 Logo released under the OGL. No big difference really. At this point in the game there are so few d20 print companies left, that it doesn't really matter anyway and a lot of companies that are still releasing stuff are using the OGL like Mongoose.

The only way that Wizards can make 4e incompatible with the OGL would be to release an entirely new system that is radically different from what is in 3.5. Normally I'd say that would never happen, but in light of the recent events over the past week, anything is possible.