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

[ruemere]

What monopoly or censorship? RPGs are neither monopolized nor censored. D&D and D20, as BRAND NAMEs are owned by Wotc and Wotc has the absolute right to do with these names as wishes. There just is NO invitation on this here. If the rpg business has no resources to deal with the lack of this invitation, then it is dead already. But guess what: it isn't.
The sky hasn't fallen yet and I don't know if it ever will.

Quoting directly from Wikipedia:
In Economics, monopoly (also "Pure monopoly") exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.

While RPGs in general are not being monopolized, the future 4E market could be in danger of just this. From perspective of general RPG fan, the issue may seem trivial - there are hundred games and companies out there. On the other hand, small d20-oriented publishers, in order to secure their future will need to somehow find a way to fit into new environment.

Meanwhile, the issue of potentially restrictive Game System License (GSL) may significantly hinder this, since, as it has been hinted, GSL is likely to combine d20 license elements with some OGL components.

In other words, I'm afraid that WotC (Hasbro) may exercise their new license to censor third party products by application of severe limitations. And, as the current state of information seem to point, famous d20 third party products like Darwin World, Mutants and Masterminds, Tome of Horrors, PcGen, Arcana Unearthed/Evolved may be unable to continue in 4E.

About the strength you mentioned... OGL allowed for forming of large community (ENWORLD, I'm looking at you), 4E's GSL may fracture it by alienating stronger OGL-based game lines.
Finally, smaller publishers will probably disappear due to lack open market.


Dude, time for a few plain words, just for you:
Ants are important part of ecology system, just like the elephants. Ownership aside, large and open market benefits everyone and existence of common rule system strongly supports existence of such market.


Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Ranger REG]

Because I dislike many aspects of 4e.

Firstly, there is the issue of the rules. I feel that simulationism (and I like me my simulationism) has been trampled over - basically, the designers paid no attention to it whatsoever and whatever simulationism is present in the rules is there not by deliberate design, but arising coincidently out of their gamist rules. Simulationism in the rules is especially important for me as a DM and less so as a player (though I do like it as a player too), but I am almost always the DM.

Last I checked, I'm not a simulationist, nor should D&D be a simulation game. I'm a roleplayer wanting a role-playing game.

 

[Ranger REG]

Personally I will not buy a lawnmower unless it is open source.

Needless to say my lawn is getting kind of bushy.

I hope your "lawn" is not a metaphor.

 

[Hussar]

So please remember that your view point of "closed to open so its a gift" is not the view of all D&D players. MANY of us remember "open to long period of closed where TSR brought the game down back to open again Yay! Wizards is doing it right." Many of us see a return to the original glory and support and choice for D&D.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, weren't a large number of those products both violating copyright and roundly denounced by people at TSR even back in the day? I seem to remember that a lot of Dragon articles took pretty serious aim at those 3rd party publishers, such as they were, and came down pretty heavily on them.

It wasn't that OD&D was open, it was they just didn't get around to litigating.

Or is that completely misreading history?

 

[Roman]

Last I checked, I'm not a simulationist, nor should D&D be a simulation game. I'm a roleplayer wanting a role-playing game.

I only elaborated as to why, because Hussar asked. I didn't and don't want to turn this thread into a simulationism versus gamism debate. Unlike you, I do like simulationist aspects in my D&D, so you "nor should D&D be a simulation game", is a value judgment on your part worded as if it were an objective statement. Suffice it to say that my value judgment is different, and I like a higher degree of simulationism in my games than 4E is projected to provide. That does not mean that I would like transform D&D into a completely simulationist game, but rather that I would have liked to see designers take simulationism deliberately into account when designing the game and not discarding it entirely. To tie this back into the topic of the thread. It is precisely the provision of more simulationism and of the classic flavor that I would desire from 3rd party products and some degree of openness would be required for that. Direct licensing could, in theory, do the trick, but more likely than not, WotC would then require 3rd parties to follow its 4e philosophy....

 

[ObsidianCrane]

I essentially have no need for 3rd party products. I have a wealth of gaming material accumulated over 20 years of play.

I'll buy 4e because its moving DnD in a direction I like, the only 3rd Party publication I would be remotely interested in is a replacement for Dungeon, and honestly I probably don't need that, I'm just lazy

 

[ruemere]

I essentially have no need for 3rd party products. I have a wealth of gaming material accumulated over 20 years of play.

I'll buy 4e because its moving DnD in a direction I like, the only 3rd Party publication I would be remotely interested in is a replacement for Dungeon, and honestly I probably don't need that, I'm just lazy

That's not necessarily a reason for not supporting OGL. We're all here because of one base system and its openness serves the purpose of maintaining ties among users of vastly differing games.

That's how ENWORLD would look like without OGL... and that's how it may looks a few years from now if the OGL dies down:

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Regards,
Ruemere

 

[xechnao]

Quoting directly from Wikipedia:
In Economics, monopoly (also "Pure monopoly") exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.

While RPGs in general are not being monopolized, the future 4E market could be in danger of just this. From perspective of general RPG fan, the issue may seem trivial - there are hundred games and companies out there. On the other hand, small d20-oriented publishers, in order to secure their future will need to somehow find a way to fit into new environment.

Meanwhile, the issue of potentially restrictive Game System License (GSL) may significantly hinder this, since, as it has been hinted, GSL is likely to combine d20 license elements with some OGL components.

In other words, I'm afraid that WotC (Hasbro) may exercise their new license to censor third party products by application of severe limitations. And, as the current state of information seem to point, famous d20 third party products like Darwin World, Mutants and Masterminds, Tome of Horrors, PcGen, Arcana Unearthed/Evolved may be unable to continue in 4E.

About the strength you mentioned... OGL allowed for forming of large community (ENWORLD, I'm looking at you), 4E's GSL may fracture it by alienating stronger OGL-based game lines.
Finally, smaller publishers will probably disappear due to lack open market.


Dude, time for a few plain words, just for you:
Ants are important part of ecology system, just like the elephants. Ownership aside, large and open market benefits everyone and existence of common rule system strongly supports existence of such market.


Regards,
Ruemere

4E is not a service. It is Wotc's rpg attached on the D&D brand name they own. Brand names are not services. Can you understand this?
There is still OGL and most importantly other rpgs out there because nobody can copyright game rules. If game rules or ideas were copyrightable, yes there could be a monopoly here but this is not the case.

EDIT: I understand what you are saying about market control. My feelings are against this too, but this is how the system works now. Nevertheless I believe that in the RPG market giving too much power on the leader (even more than what herself can control) harms the whole market and hobby and potentialy even the leader too. Regarding small publishers, I believe they should have been expecting this. You can't consider an attachment to the leader's casual market aggressiveness (3e SRD) a long term viable solution.

 

[Cadfan]

Its silly to call WOTC control of D&D a monopoly. That's like saying that Ford has a monopoly on vehicles made by Ford. Technically a true statement, but it obscures rather than illuminates.

 

[drjones]

Its silly to call WOTC control of D&D a monopoly. That's like saying that Ford has a monopoly on vehicles made by Ford. Technically a true statement, but it obscures rather than illuminates.

Or that Apple is a Monopoly because they do not yet allow third party software to be loaded onto iPhones without violating the TOS. it might not be Nice of them or good for business etc. but the fact remains that there are a lot of other phones you can buy which can allow all sorts of 3rd party software installed on them.