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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5978633" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>It worked really well for the game, in a technical sense, addressing known problems with the game that had long been complained about by fans and mocked by detractors. In the business sense, I don't think the technical changes really made the difference, though. When I look for a cause, I find it helpful to ask the question 'what's different?' The 1e/2e and 2e/3e rev rolls didn't result in the same level of crazy that the 3e/4e one did. So, what was different about them? </p><p></p><p>The parent company was different, TSR vs WotC vs Hasbro, TSR and WotC were small companies founded by and employing enthusiasts, while Hasbro is a large mainstream corporation, so there's one candidate, but the folks actually working on D&D still seem to include some enthusiasts. </p><p></p><p>The degree of change was much less in the 1e/2e roll, but the 2e/3e and 3e/4e rolls were both pretty substantial changes, so that doesn't explain the difference in the reaction. Similarly, the changes in all three cases were positive, and responsive to well-known problems: 2e fixed known mistakes and issues in 1e, 3e finally did away with long-derided race/class level limits & multi-classing and consolidated on a single, consistent resolution mechanic, 4e finally addressed long-standing class & encounter balance issues. </p><p></p><p>The OGL was introduced with 3e, so the 1e/2e roll had no OGL, the 2e/3e was a roll /to/ the OGL, and the 3e/4e roll was /away/ from the OGL to the GSL. There's another candidate. Related to that, the 3e/4e rev-roll incited the development of a 3e clone, Pathfinder. The 2e/3e roll didn't result in a clone of 2e (it /did/ result in a clone/parody of 1e, called Hackmaster, though). Since the move to the GSL by D&D, every past ed of D&D has been cloned under the OGL.</p><p></p><p></p><p>From the above, I'm tempted to conclude that the real issue is the OGL (or, rather, the abandonment of the OGL), because it's the glaring difference. The OGL did get many other companies on board the d20 bandwagon, which helped WotC and D&D re-gain market dominance, and that would reasonably have contributed to the adoption of 3e. By the same token, moving away from the OGL turned collaborators into competitors. We gamers are not a particularly conformist breed of geek, I believe, but what's floating around in the market does have an influence. If you're nerd-raging against (or for) something, having a competing product to wallet-vote for (or against) is going to re-enforce that sense of conflict. And, the sense of conflict escalated right into the 'edition war.'</p><p></p><p></p><p>The obvious next (npi) question is how will 5e avoid the same problem. Well, maybe by being an OGL game, and welcoming d20 back to the WotC fold? We haven't heard anything on that subject as yet, AFAIK. While the 3.0/3.5 changeover wasn't a full rev-roll, it did show that fans and collaborators were reasonably willing to embrace a shift in the flagship d20 game and a revised SRD. If D&D:Next is just the flagship of d20:NEXT with an NSRD, there could be relatively little resistance. If it uses something like the GSL, the OGL can continue to be used as a rallying point for those who reject it (and there have been some with every rev-roll).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 5978633, member: 996"] It worked really well for the game, in a technical sense, addressing known problems with the game that had long been complained about by fans and mocked by detractors. In the business sense, I don't think the technical changes really made the difference, though. When I look for a cause, I find it helpful to ask the question 'what's different?' The 1e/2e and 2e/3e rev rolls didn't result in the same level of crazy that the 3e/4e one did. So, what was different about them? The parent company was different, TSR vs WotC vs Hasbro, TSR and WotC were small companies founded by and employing enthusiasts, while Hasbro is a large mainstream corporation, so there's one candidate, but the folks actually working on D&D still seem to include some enthusiasts. The degree of change was much less in the 1e/2e roll, but the 2e/3e and 3e/4e rolls were both pretty substantial changes, so that doesn't explain the difference in the reaction. Similarly, the changes in all three cases were positive, and responsive to well-known problems: 2e fixed known mistakes and issues in 1e, 3e finally did away with long-derided race/class level limits & multi-classing and consolidated on a single, consistent resolution mechanic, 4e finally addressed long-standing class & encounter balance issues. The OGL was introduced with 3e, so the 1e/2e roll had no OGL, the 2e/3e was a roll /to/ the OGL, and the 3e/4e roll was /away/ from the OGL to the GSL. There's another candidate. Related to that, the 3e/4e rev-roll incited the development of a 3e clone, Pathfinder. The 2e/3e roll didn't result in a clone of 2e (it /did/ result in a clone/parody of 1e, called Hackmaster, though). Since the move to the GSL by D&D, every past ed of D&D has been cloned under the OGL. From the above, I'm tempted to conclude that the real issue is the OGL (or, rather, the abandonment of the OGL), because it's the glaring difference. The OGL did get many other companies on board the d20 bandwagon, which helped WotC and D&D re-gain market dominance, and that would reasonably have contributed to the adoption of 3e. By the same token, moving away from the OGL turned collaborators into competitors. We gamers are not a particularly conformist breed of geek, I believe, but what's floating around in the market does have an influence. If you're nerd-raging against (or for) something, having a competing product to wallet-vote for (or against) is going to re-enforce that sense of conflict. And, the sense of conflict escalated right into the 'edition war.' The obvious next (npi) question is how will 5e avoid the same problem. Well, maybe by being an OGL game, and welcoming d20 back to the WotC fold? We haven't heard anything on that subject as yet, AFAIK. While the 3.0/3.5 changeover wasn't a full rev-roll, it did show that fans and collaborators were reasonably willing to embrace a shift in the flagship d20 game and a revised SRD. If D&D:Next is just the flagship of d20:NEXT with an NSRD, there could be relatively little resistance. If it uses something like the GSL, the OGL can continue to be used as a rallying point for those who reject it (and there have been some with every rev-roll). [/QUOTE]
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