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

[nerfherder]

Nobody's forcing you to buy the non-WotC products - what benefit to you do you see from having D&D closed? Fewer products to clutter the gaming shop when they could just have one bookshelf of WotC products and then - sell cards or something?

If the WotC products are the ones that sell best, and so the shop makes more money and can stay in business, then that would benefit him.

 

[mxyzplk]

If the WotC products are the ones that sell best, and so the shop makes more money and can stay in business, then that would benefit him.

You realize book/game stores choose what to stock right? They don't have to stock things that don't sell. They stock things they think will sell. They stock 3p stuff not because "mean ol' Green Ronin told them to," they stock it because they find it profitable.

 

[mxyzplk]

That now some publishers will focus more on innovation and quality instead of trying to make money by exploiting the D&D brand name? And thus we will see more improvement on the shelves?

Well, even though I don't think that d20 necessarily stifles creativity, you have a point here. I'd rather Jonathan Tweet be back on the street making more Over the Edge, Ars Magica, etc. like he should be rather than selling out to the minis game.

 

[The Eternal GM]

Nobody's forcing you to buy the non-WotC products - what benefit to you do you see from having D&D closed? Fewer products to clutter the gaming shop when they could just have one bookshelf of WotC products and then - sell cards or something?

I just look at it like this... What did the OGL really achieve? A boom/bust for a couple of years, a lot of otherwise good games shoe horned into a rules system that didn't suit them, a few genuinely good games that likely would have succeeded without being part of the OGL or in some other form of collaboration with WotC.

With the concept wasn't bad, the intentions noble and some of the response by publishers (many of whom did come to prominence during this time) it also opened a quite literal floodgate of utterly horrible products that filled gaming shelves in very gaming store I looked in.

I know my opinion is mostly my own and not shared by a great many. Online publishing allows any old Joe to put something out and call himself a rpg publisher, I know more than a few folks who do just that... But the glut of pointless, ugly, stupid or just plain needless d20 books actually seems to hurt our hobby far more than it helped. The books were confusing, often woefully imbalanced, quite rarely professionally done (or even close) and in the worst cases they were truly offensive articles designed to either fluff the ego of the 'writer' or merely to offend for its own sake.

How is any of this to be lauded as a success?

Mutants & Masterminds isn't a success because it's d20... It's so far removed it may as well not be d20 and would have succeeded on it's own system or another. Likewise most of the other few true OGL successes. Other companies had good relations with WotC or would have been able to seek some kind of licensing for the rules if it mattered (Paizo, Necro, etc.) it would have cut out the penny publishers, who in most cases were only pitching their own house rules to a tiny audience anyway.

I don't mean to come down hard on anyone here who is a small d20 publisher, in fact I hope most are honest enough to agree that they really don't own a niche in the rpg market space outside of curiosity or niche appeal. There is some good stuff, but it comes pretty close to impossible to find amidst the junk, even now, long after the bubble burst.

The 4th Edition license is more restrictive, which is good as I see it. But also has divided those publishers who were waiting for it. So that's fragmented the audience between those now making disparate 3.5 variants and those hoping to hop onto 4th Edition.

Once again, is this good? Honestly?

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Considering the "quality" (and I use that term loosely) of most of the 3rd party stuff, I wouldn't miss it as a player/DM.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That now some publishers will focus more on innovation and quality instead of trying to make money by exploiting the D&D brand name?

These two things are not incompatible.

Considering the "quality" (and I use that term loosely) of most of the 3rd party stuff, I wouldn't miss it as a player/DM.

Compare, say, Iron Heroes against, say, Sword and Fist.

The idea that 3rd party stuff is mostly low-quality is overblown. There's some massive stinkers out there, but WotC has had their own massive stinkers ("The halfling outrider is SUPPOSED to not have a BAB!"). There's some tremendous glories out there that are on par with any tremendous glories WotC puts out (Oathbound vs. the 3.0 FRCS, for instance).

Anyone who thinks that the third party stuff is mostly crap hasn't seen most of the third party stuff (though they've probably seen some crap. )

 

[Mercule]

I want to elaborate on what I said earlier. I don't think WotC has any obligation to make their IP "open" or available for other parties to build from. If they chose to make 4e totally closed, I would suffer from exactly zero moral outrage. Fudge is the only other open game of which I'm aware, so it's not like closed content is against the norm, either.

I have always tended to play D&D with a combination of either "official" (TSR/WotC/Dragon) rules and house rules. Even back to 1e, there have been some gems of 3rd party products compatible with D&D. There have also been some real turds. I've found the gems to add a little something, but nothing critical or even primary to my enjoyment of the game.

In 3x, I have found more turds than gems. Some companies just turn out worthless crap. Others turn out good rules that don't seem to fit the flavor I want. Even the good stuff often requires me to stop playing D&D to really use because they replace many of the core rules (Iron Heroes and, to a lesser extent, Arcana Evolved both fall into this category). Very, very few 3rd party supplements actually enhance D&D rather than altering it.

Honestly, Paizo, Necromancer, Goodman Games, and Green Ronin are the only companies that come to mind. Paizo looks to be going down the path of an altered 3.5, which even showed through in the early Pathfinders, from what I saw. Green Ronin seems to be focusing on non-SRD products (aren't they True 20?). I have no idea about Goodman. Only Necromancer has committed to 4e.

And, really, I'm fine with that. Of all the 3x products I have on my shelf, there only a few that I'm going to miss when moving to 4e. I never did get to see Tome of Magic in action, but it sounds like the cooler bits may see their way to 4e. I'm a Ravenloft nut, so I'm sad to not have run that module, but I really picked it up for nostalgia, anyway. And I'd still like to try Rappak Athuk Reloaded, even more than Ravenloft. In thinking about things, I realized that Necromancer seems to be doing exactly the sort of 3rd party products I want, and they're off a good quality. When 4e rolls out, I'm definitely going to be looking specifically at Necromancer, in addition to WotC.

So, I'd be fine if WotC completely closed down 4e. I'd be even happier if they closed it, but specifically licensed Necromancer to do some products. Having a semi-closed license that has some guidelines to encourage companies to do more enhancement and less replacement is probably ideal. Having a completely open license that encourages alternate PHBs, radically divergent (read: nearly or completely incompatible) alternate rules, or wholesale reproduction of the core rules is a bad thing and I'll be happy to see it go.

 

[Mercule]

Compare, say, Iron Heroes against, say, Sword and Fist.

Except that IH is really only compatible with IH. You can't use it with the wealth guidelines in the DMG. You can't use it with the Magic Item Compendium. You can't use it with Elements of Magic. You might even have difficulty using it with the Monster Manual.

Iron Heroes isn't a D&D supplement. It's a completely new game with similar mechanics to D&D. Almost a different edition.

Note: I'm not saying S&F was great. But you also can't cherry pick one of the worst WotC products to put up against a pretty good 3rd party product. Try matching up IH and Tome of Magic or Draconomicon. Leave S&F to compete with some of Mongoose's early stuff.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I like the idea of open source products, whether they are game systems or software.

However, only an idiot would base his purchase of a product solely on whether or not it was using open content.

The only reason to purchase or use a product is if you have reason to believe that it is better than the one you currently use. Based on the information to date, it is very possible that 4th edition will simply be a better game than 3rd edition. If it lives up to its promises, it will be faster to run, both in combat in for game prep. It will remove elements of the game that generally do not work out well in practice, such as Save or Screwed effects (Most hold and paralysis stuff). High level play should not break down as it does presently. It will integrate technology that will make playing less logistically complicated, which is better than the current state of improvised solutions that currently exist.

Of course there are plenty of reasons not to purchase the game. The rules are going to change dramatically enough that they may very well change the essential feel of the game. Running without miniatures will be yet more difficult. Low level characters feel a great deal more powerful. The official rule for diagonal movement being the same as non diagonal is just mind crushingly stupid. We lose the gnome and instead gain draconic and demon races. The power of spell casters loses alot of glamour when the idiot swinging a sword can do essentially the same kind of tricks. Purely mechanical restrictions on when a character can use certain magical items. There is plenty of be wary of.

But in neither case is there reason to believe that 3rd party publishers being able to create content for a system would meaningfully impact actual play at the table with respect to how the core system feels in play.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[xechnao]

These two things are not incompatible.

Opt "compatibility" with quality or innovation is not the same as focus and priority on quality or innovation.