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

[Orcus]

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?

I'm happy to correct you.

Judges Guild had an official license for D&D. Their products said "For use with Dungeons and Dragons" and later "for use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons."

Heck, the first "module" ever available was by a company called Wee Warriors, and it was called the Palace of the Vampire Queen.

Then things changed at TSR. They clamped down. Suits started running things. Bad things happened.

There were copyright cases with Mayfair and cease and desist letters, but that was in the dark days of TSR, after the golden days of openness.

Many of us, and I think I speak for Ryan when I say this, saw the start of the Open Gaming movement as a return to those golden days of multiple voices and additional product choice for players of D&D. I know Ryan felt like that. He and I discussed it.

So when D&D was truly at its pinnacle, it had third party support. It dominated the industry and it was great for D&D. Open Gaming was a return to that. Now, frankly, it didnt have to be open gaming. It could just have been licenses. But I think open gaming was even better cause it gave power to the people--pdf publishers, etc. Maybe some would say it was too open. Maybe they will change that with 4E. But the bottom line is that the golden days of D&D had third party publishers and third party support for the game. That is one of the reasons why, as a gamer, I would hate to see 4E go away from that.

So back to your post, no you are not correct. While TSR did eventually get taken over by suits who had no clue abotu gaming (they even drove Gygax out, for goodness sake), and who started suing everyone and sending cease and desist letters to fansites, in the early great days of D&D third parties were thought of as a huge support.

Clark

 

[jeffh]

To the original question, I chose "Other" because none of the options quite capture my feelings on this. I'm not happy with the delay on the GSL, but that's because of my views on making promises one isn't serious about keeping, not because of any philosophical attachment or sense of entitlement to openness for its own sake. I've got tons of gaming products that wouldn't exist without the OGL and I'd rather see that trend continue than not, but it's not a make or break factor in any purchasing decisions of mine, much less something I feel I have some sort of divinely ordained right to. But I *am* upset that WotC appears to have made commitments regarding the GSL and, at absolute best, failed to think through what would really be involved in keeping them.

 

[nerfherder]

There were copyright cases with Mayfair and cease and desist letters, but that was in the dark days of TSR, after the golden days of openness.

The licenses weren't open, though, were they?

 

[BadMojo]

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.

He's talking about the "GNS" thing from Ron Edwards. Personally, I never thought of D&D as being particularly "simulationist", but it definitely seems to be moving even more towards the gamist end of the spectrum.

My reasons are 100% the same, but unfortunately there's a lot of things inherent to the design of 4E that I don't like. I'll certainly give it a try, but right now I can't imagine myself wanting to play this game on any long term basis.

The only things that might keep me around 4E a bit longer would be some sort of "killer app" as far as an adventure (or series of) that are just too good to pass up.

I honestly doubt that WotC is going to do produce something amazing as far as adventures go. They've been very "hit or miss" for me and I've relied on 3rd party products heavily. So, without good third party adventures I most likely won't be playing 4E very much.

 

[Fobok]

I voted that I'd purchase it even if it wasn't open, because that's how most of the RPG games I play actually are, and it doesn't stop my enjoyment of them.

However, I think it'd be a real shame if 4e was closed.

 

[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?

However, we're talking about the whole market of differing products, not just about brand aspect.

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.

OGL community could become the "long term viable solution", even if the market leader pulls away in attempt to create a new market, within which it will enjoy position of monopolist.
However, I believe that there is no replacement for WotC company in current market. As I have pointed out at Paizo forums, creating a new system is not an answer, since you're basically relying on being able to tear away a chunk from original consumer base. Pathfinder RPG, because of its differences, is likely to become a product similar to 4E albeit with less of following.

True20 and other systems also suffer from the lack of compatibility - you either play 3.x or one of those. Yes, you can play both, but in the long run most DMs will follow only of of those systems. So, instead of an upgrade to current systems, everyone seems to be going in their own direction.

And if everyone goes in their own direction, the consumer base will fracture and smaller publishers will fall (they rely on shared fan base, after all).

Of course, if Orcus, Paizo, Green Ronin and other heavyweights of OGL would come together to some agreement and decide to either produce their own 3.75 or set one standard to support, they could do it. Or so I believe.

For now, it's like watching galaxies running away. Beatiful things flying away from each other.

Regards,
Ruemere

PS. Yeah, the one common standard would be the way to go. Paizo Pathfinder, with its significant differences already present in Alpha Edition, is not an answer for the community as a whole. Same, unfortunately, goes for Green Ronin's True20.
I really do think that these guys should talk to each other and come to some agreement.

 

[BadMojo]

However, I believe that there is no replacement for WotC company in current market. As I have pointed out at Paizo forums, creating a new system is not an answer, since you're basically relying on being able to tear away a chunk from original consumer base.

It's pretty much the only option at this point since we're about two months from the release of 4E, there's no license in sight and not single meaningful word on the subject from Wizards in a long time.

Since there's apparently not going to be any third party adventures released around the same time as the 4E PHB, what are people supposed to play after it's July and you've played through H1 and H2?

As I said before, for those of us who don't have time to homebrew an adventure (especially using an unfamiliar system), it seems like there's going to be a big gap in available adventures. I'm not exactly holding out hope that the online version of Dungeon will be delivered in anything resembling a timely fashion.

 

[The Little Raven]

Since there's apparently not going to be any third party adventures released around the same time as the 4E PHB, what are people supposed to play after it's July and you've played through H1 and H2?

Even if everything had gone as planned, there wouldn't have been any 3rd-party material released at the same time as the PHB, since the original plan prevented 3rd-party publications until August, two whole months.

 

[Imban]

Even if everything had gone as planned, there wouldn't have been any 3rd-party material released at the same time as the PHB, since the original plan prevented 3rd-party publications until August, two whole months.

To be fair, though, wasn't that going to be less than a month after the Monster Manual came out at the time of the announcement?

 

[The Little Raven]

To be fair, though, wasn't that going to be less than a month after the Monster Manual came out at the time of the announcement?

Possibly. I don't remember when the May-June-July thing changed to June, but I know we got the GSL Phase 1 August date in January.