D&D (2024) Would a OneDND closed/restricted license be good, actually?

[FrogReaver]

No to all of the above. Not sure I understand the point of the questions.

You asked what stops people from playing other games. I answered with what stops me from playing other games.

Because by answering no to those questions you just contradicted yourself. You wouldn't be playing other games if D&D was less popular, you would still be playing D&D. The things you claimed would cause you to play something other than D&D don't actually do that.

 

[mamba]

Because by answering no to those questions you just contradicted yourself. You wouldn't be playing other games if D&D was less popular, you would still be playing D&D. The things you claimed would cause you to play something other than D&D don't actually do that.

he didn’t say it would cause him to play other games, he said this is what prevents him from doing so. Not the same thing

I agree that this basically means he will play 5e either way, but it is not a contradiction

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, this is a good question and I'm not completely sure where I land on it. On one hand, there was a kind of flowering of non-D&D RPGs in the 90s when D&D was weakest (or market fragmentation, depending on your perspective). On the other hand, you could argue there's been a second flowering of non-D&D RPGs during this period when it's been at it's strongest. I do think what happened in the 90s strained 1990s distribution channels (that's the market fragmentation argument), but I wouldn't mind seeing what a "weak D&D" period looks like in the Kickstarter era.

Despite that, in the real world we live in, I'd don't think we're about to enter a "weak D&D" period. All signs point the other direction, for the time being.

I think weaker period for the new version than currently exists for 5e but still strong overall. IMO Fanbase seems ripe to fragment. OGL misteps can quickly erase any customer goodwill. MTG debacle already makes people a bit on edge.

I believe that a consistently weak D&D is bad for RPG community. That said, a boom and bust cycle of D&D might actually be very good. The bust period would be where D&D fans start trying out other games. I believe that's what the OP is thinking of, but I believe such a phenomenon requires the D&D boom period.

 

[FrogReaver]

I agree that this basically means he will play 5e either way, but it is not a contradiction

I don't agree, but since you concede that it means he will play 5e either way then arguing over whether it was technically a contradiction doesn't seem useful.

 

[overgeeked]

I assume you mean when WotC created the OGL. In no way did they create the OSR.

You could very easily argue they did. They bought TSR, released an edition some didn’t like, released the OGL, and refused to sell any content for older editions in any format. This directly lead to the creation of the OSR. Those last three were essential to the OSR. Without those, there’s no OSR.

 

[Manbearcat]

Its a question where the answer is extremely difficult to know. Here are a pile of thoughts and anecdotes for the thought experiment:

* The promise of broad social fabric support, possible social cache to be earned, and relatively low buy-in is very seductive to the bulk of humanity.

This passes the “D&D test.”

* The best case of “impossible for monopoly to emerge” that I am aware of is plumbers. That is because the nexus of the need is endogenous to the system (everyone has plumbing), the need is overwhelming (plumbing fails at a rate x the scale of plumbing out there that the demand is overwhelming), and the expertise required to resolve the issue is intensive.

The TTRPG market kinda touches that first one but not to the degree required (playing “imagination” and playing games are fundamental to the human experience). The need will likely never be overwhelming unless we hit Wall-E levels of dystopia (and I personally see extinction long before then). Yes, expertise is required for at least one participant to successfully navigate a TTRPG (best case scenario is all participants have expertise).

* I’ve GMed 14 non-D&D games online in the last 2 years (Dungeon World x 2, Blades in the Dark x 5 including a hack, Stonetop x 2, Lasers & Feelings, Dogs in the Vineyard, Torchbearer, The Between, Aliens). The cohort of 13 players consists of diverse life backgrounds, diverse non-TTRPG interests, extensive D&D backgrounds but only 3 of the players in a current D&D 5e game.

* I’ve had success over the last 15 years in running indie games via tapping into the Eurogaming market, the general Boardgaming market, the CRPG market, and even the MtG market (with these players having very little to no D&D exposure). D&D has tried to tap into a lot of these massive markets but they haven’t been quite seduced by D&D’s “cornered the market/culture from the jump” advantages in my first asterisk above. They’ve got all that stuff from their own niches and they’re quite happy so its individual initiative and elbow grease to get them to try TTRPG games. And a lot of them have played an enormous amount of games so (a) learning and onboarding a new rules paradigm is second nature to them and (b) any passive stance toward playing (rather than driving the play) is utterly foreign and outright anathema to them (so the aggressive player orientation required in most indie games comes natural to them).

 

[mamba]

You could very easily argue they did. They bought TSR, released an edition some didn’t like, released the OGL, and refused to sell any content for older editions in any format. This directly lead to the creation of the OSR. Those last three were essential to the OSR. Without those, there’s no OSR.

That is a bit like saying you caused an accident by not being in the car when your dog flipped it from park to drive. Sure, without the OGL it would not have happened, but this is rather indirect

 

[Mistwell]

Literally none of these issues matter much in the grand scheme of the sales for D&D (with one exception I mention at the bottom). The extreme overwhelming majority of people who buy D&D stuff don't even know about the OGL, and will never see other games. This is almost entirely a "10% of hardcore older gamers who discuss this stuff online."

As an example of what the mass market sees I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday. Their RPG section was almost entirely D&D. The remaining portion was random books intended to play with D&D without being explicitly for D&D, accessories for D&D like dice and stuffies and cards and such, and artbooks.

You know how many Pathfinder books were there? One. And I don't mean multiple copies of one, I mean there was literally only one PF book. And it was from 1e, not 2e. There used to be a lot more PF books three years ago, but they're just not carrying them anymore. You know how many other RPG books were there? Zero. Zero books from games other than D&D and that 1 PF 1e book.

And it's not like it somehow sold out during Christmas - the entire section was well stocked and full, and it was all D&D. The most stocked thing was the D&D starter set boxes. Same as I've seen every week there for years now.

If you look at Target and Walmart and other big box stores, you are likely to similarly see no other RPGs there than D&D.

If you look on streaming platforms, it's the same. The extreme overwhelming majority of views are for people playing D&D or talking about D&D.

There is really only one caveat to all of this - Critical Role. If WOTC cannot work out a side license with Critical Role to exempt them from the standard royalties (and I think that's what they will do) then I can see this issue having a meaningful impact on WOTC.

But other than that I think this is an issue which is largely not impactful to the extreme overwhelming majority of the marketplace. They probably could entirely shut down 3p licensing other than Critical Role at this point and it probably wouldn't have much impact on their sales, though I think PR wise that wouldn't be a good decision. They're just too huge now - WAY exponentially bigger than 3e/3.5e was. In fact, hugely bigger than the launch years of 5e, which were themselves already bigger than any other D&D sales on record. Brand recognition for D&D is an entity unto itself now.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You could very easily argue they did. They bought TSR, released an edition some didn’t like, released the OGL, and refused to sell any content for older editions in any format. This directly lead to the creation of the OSR. Those last three were essential to the OSR. Without those, there’s no OSR.

True, but that's like saying Loki created the Avengers. Technically true, but wholly unintended and likely regretted at this point, at least by the money people who are likely driving this new OGL.

 

[overgeeked]

True, but that's like saying Loki created the Avengers. Technically true, but wholly unintended and likely regretted at this point, at least by the money people who are likely driving this new OGL.

Yes, 100% unintended and once the OSR became a thing WotC put out older editions as PDFs and some as POD (where’s my B/X POD?). But the genie was already out of the bottle.

And yeah, Loki did create the Avengers. He didn’t mean to, but he still did.