D&D 4E Would you buy 4E if it were not open/had no licenses for 3rd party companies?

[Roman]

There has been some recent speculation on whether 4E will in fact be open and if there will be a GSL. I am wondering whether this would affect your purchasing decisions regarding 4E. So... would you buy 4E if it were not open/had no licenses for 3rd party companies or fans?

Please vote on the poll and elaborate on your thoughts in the thread.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Yeah I would, I generally don't buy 3rd party stuff (don't have a credit card for online purchases) so it wouldn't really affect me.

 

[SuperJosh]

Yea I would buy it if it were only 1st party. We usually do not use 3rd party publications since a lot of them tend to be immensely broken.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I would really be sad if companies like Goodman Games couldn't easily publish D&D material, but I'd still buy the game if it was "completely closed."

 

[Roman]

Just to elaborate a little: I don't personally think that 4E is going to be closed, so it is a bit of a hypothetical question on my part. There are some people, however, who do believe that, mostly on the basis of the second to last post on the fifth page of this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=221163&page=5

 

[Slander]

I'd definitely prefer an open-ish system. I like the adventure and monster books from third parties. But as far as rules go, our group tends to remain with core products only.

Edit: So I voted "Purchase even if closed"

 

[nerfherder]

It didn't stop me buying AD&D, so I can't imagine why it would stop me buying 4e.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Open content for RPGs means little to me. If I like an RPG, I will buy it. I don't base it on if "the other" guy is making stuff for it too. Grant it, some 3rd party stuff can be good, but most of the RPGs I get are closed anyway.

 

[Propheous_D]

I think that when it comes to something like RPGs the main system has to stand on its own. That being said people have to want to play it regardless of 3rd parties. While 3rd parties enhance a product like this, they certainly don't make or break it. In fact I don't know many RPG's that support 3rd parties as much as DnD has since 3rd.

 

[mhensley]

I probably still would but it would definitely make me stop and think about it.

 

[Grossout]

I'm looking forward to 3rd party adventure modules and monster books. The only "player option" stuff I anticipate buying will be from WoTC.

 

[Lord Fyre]

A great majority appear to be willing to buy into 4th Edition without any outside support. I am quite surprised at the magnitude of "pro-WoTC" feeling.

 

[Voss]

A great majority appear to be willing to buy into 4th Edition without any outside support. I am quite surprised at the magnitude of "pro-WoTC" feeling.

I wouldn't call it 'pro-WotC' feeling, necessarily. That isn't being measured by the poll. It would, for example, be equally valid to call it 'anti-3rd party' feeling, but I seriously doubt that is driving people either.

Since I voted for closed, I'll offer up my view- I just don't care about third party material one way or the other. I doubt I'll care much about future WotC products either. I certainly won't be buying into the online... stuff, or most of the future books, unless they really, really impress me. And by really impress, I mean reverse the impression I have of 3e splatbooks- 20% useful material, 80% garbage. If they can switch those numbers around, then I'd buy them.

 

[HeinorNY]

A great majority appear to be willing to buy into 4th Edition without any outside support. I am quite surprised at the magnitude of "pro-WoTC" feeling.

As someone who voted for the third option, it's more of a "pro-Quality", "pro-Balanced" and "pro-Core" feeling in my case.

 

[stripes]

Please vote on the poll and elaborate on your thoughts in the thread.

"No 3rd party content" means a return to the "Bad Old Days" where TSR made D&D adventures (aka modules), and others did only at their extreme peril. Frequently going so far as to not stat monsters, or make similar sounding monsters with similar stats. Sometimes in a similar sounding system.

So you wouldn't be able to buy a Dungeon Crawl Classic from Goodman Games, or an Adventure Path from Piazo (even if they wanted to make them), nor from Necro.

That would be very sad, and I'm not likely to buy 4e if it turns out to be the case. By "not likely" I mean "Can I get my pre-order money back? Store credit would be fine." And "I'm unlikely to buy it later either, I remember the dark days, I know how that movie ends, I didn't like it last time, and I'm not going to like it this time either."



You also couldn't buy a set of new monsters (which sounds like fun!), or magic items, or spells, or whatever. I don't really do this very often, and would miss it more in the abstract then in reality. That sort of restriction would make me think twice about buying 4e, but wouldn't be an absolute bar.

This would also make me sad. I might cancel my pre-order. In fact I'm likely to do so, but may or may not buy it in 6 to 8 months depending on how things work out.


If it is "just" that you can't break apart the game and rebuild it from the ground up and make something like Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, then that's not such a good thing, but I never bought those books anyway. It would make me a little sad that such freedom is gone from the world, but it won't slow down my pre-order.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

If it's open for the purpose of adventures and campaign settings, I'll buy it.

If I can't get 3rd party adventures for it, I won't.

Ken

 

[mxyzplk]

If 4e isn't open enough that I can get adventures for it from Green Ronin, Atlas Games, Paizo, Goodman, etc., I'll stick with Pathfinder. WotC hasn't put out an adventure worth the name in... ever.

 

[trancejeremy]

If it were completely open, I would be buying it. That's what I liked most about 3.x/d20.

To me WOTC stuff was essentially like McDonalds' - bland, tasteless, pre-packaged, corporate cookie cutter stuff. And the early 3.0 splatbooks were as bad in quality as anything any 3rd party put out (not excepting Foundation or the worst of Mongoose)

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not sure how much 4e stuff I'll buy in the first place, but whether the licence is open or closed isn't really a factor in my decision.

That said, I sure don't want to see any kind of return to the days of TSR, where anything remotely resembling outside game development - whether for profit or not - ran into the legal smackdown hammer without ever knowing what hit it.

Lanefan

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Voted "even if closed." I've bought some 3rd party stuff in the past. It sat on my shelf. I very seldom even went beyond the 3 core books when running my games with the one exception being the Unearthed Arcana which I thought had some nifty optional rules.

I have no problems buying other RPGs that are decidedly closed (WW, GURPS, etc.). Haven't for 20+ years. Even when D&D was "closed."

Sooooo, opened, closed, whatever, just give me my D&D.