Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Between the loss of Dragon and Dungeon, and now the end of Dragonlance, things have reached a fever pitch in the (well-connected) D&D community. So then, let's ponder the worst-case scenario: what if 4E comes out, and doesn't use the OGL or anything like it, reverting to a totally closed-content game.
(As far as the worst-case goes, I'm not considering D&D ceasing production altogether. Hasbro wouldn't sit on it unused; they'd sell it, and whoever bought it would want their money's worth, so there'd be more new material. I just don't see the death of D&D happening...at this point, anyway.)
So, 4E is out and only WotC (or whoever) can produce materials for it. What happens to all of the other publishers? What happens to the industry?
Sadly, I don't think the third-parties would fare very well. It's been said by many people on many occasions that WotC basically IS the tabletop RPG industry, and where it goes, people will follow. This spells bad news for companies that rely on the 3.5 rules for their games.
Many, I think, will try to rely on purely using the OGL to continue to produce 3.5-compatible products, especially in PDF format. At the beginning, there'll be a sizable part of the gamer population that wouldn't want to leave, and these'd remain a viable market. However, it likely wouldn't be too long before that crowd shrank, and said companies eventually faded out of existence. The ones who'd last the longest would likely be those using their own variants of the system (such as Green Ronin with Mutants & Masterminds).
Eventually, though, all of them would return from whence they came, taking us back to the days of 1E/2E when, save for a few licensed products from the occasional other company, D&D was an isolated system, and you'd need to learn another rules set to play a different RPG.
I'd personally prefer not to go back to that, since I'm still being continually dazzled by what third-party companies are able to produce. But that's not up to me, and it may not be the standard for much longer.
What do you think will happen if that comes to pass?
(As far as the worst-case goes, I'm not considering D&D ceasing production altogether. Hasbro wouldn't sit on it unused; they'd sell it, and whoever bought it would want their money's worth, so there'd be more new material. I just don't see the death of D&D happening...at this point, anyway.)
So, 4E is out and only WotC (or whoever) can produce materials for it. What happens to all of the other publishers? What happens to the industry?
Sadly, I don't think the third-parties would fare very well. It's been said by many people on many occasions that WotC basically IS the tabletop RPG industry, and where it goes, people will follow. This spells bad news for companies that rely on the 3.5 rules for their games.
Many, I think, will try to rely on purely using the OGL to continue to produce 3.5-compatible products, especially in PDF format. At the beginning, there'll be a sizable part of the gamer population that wouldn't want to leave, and these'd remain a viable market. However, it likely wouldn't be too long before that crowd shrank, and said companies eventually faded out of existence. The ones who'd last the longest would likely be those using their own variants of the system (such as Green Ronin with Mutants & Masterminds).
Eventually, though, all of them would return from whence they came, taking us back to the days of 1E/2E when, save for a few licensed products from the occasional other company, D&D was an isolated system, and you'd need to learn another rules set to play a different RPG.
I'd personally prefer not to go back to that, since I'm still being continually dazzled by what third-party companies are able to produce. But that's not up to me, and it may not be the standard for much longer.
What do you think will happen if that comes to pass?