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

[Imban]

Huh? Tome of Magic, Bo9S, Fiendish Codex I and II, PHB II, DMG II, all were late WOTC books. What was wrong with the quality of those?

I was not saying WotC's rules quality was bad, it was just not amazing. I was more refuting the idea that there was a massive quality gap between the game rules produced by WotC and the game rules produced by the better third parties.

(Though I'd take you up on Tome of Magic - Truenamer was an interesting idea, but a terrible system at its core that just plain did not work.)

Funnily enough, most of the companies on your list are out of D&D and have been for some time - AEG, FFG, Malhavoc, White Wolf.

This is true, though while White Wolf hasn't really been "in D&D" for some time, they're actually putting out a 3.5e D&D (Well... World of Warcraft RPG, but eh) book in June. I'm operating under the belief that a new edition of D&D, if the ability to make third-party products for it existed, would indeed encourage third parties to enter or reenter the market and produce books for it.

 

[Mostlyjoe]

I'd buy it anyway. Open license or not, no game is ever really closed as long as I have pen and paper.

 

[Hussar]

Check out the bold parts:


Without license to rely on, all you can do is guessing. And, please do elaborate, why you seem to think that the answer to the fracture already taking place is limited to "Folks should advocate for the OGL on it's own merits" and "bigger companies will probably obtain special licenses".

For now the prospects are grim:
- OGL heavyweights pulling in different directions,
- 4E license details unknown, but already requiring investments,
- 4E early adopter phase apparently a failure due to lack of information,
- community base fracturing.

To me, the existence of shared consumer base made it possible for smaller third party publishers to bring us a lot of gems. And so I am concerned.

Regards,
Ruemere

What you're ignoring here Ruemere is that under the current framework, WOTC could shut this site down. There is no OGL listed under many (I'd say the majority) of rules quotes, and whatnot that fly around here. How often do you see hide or hair of a Section 7 or Section 8 of the OGL?

Guess what? That means that most of these posts already violate the OGL. IANAL of course, and that would have to be challenged in court, but, let's face it, it could be.

So, claiming that fan sites would get hit by a closed 4e is ignoring the fact that the 3e material isn't being challenged.

And, funnily enough, neither is the 2e or the 1e material either, which is 100% closed and yet still posted on quite regularly.

 

[catsclaw]

What you're ignoring here Ruemere is that under the current framework, WOTC could shut this site down. There is no OGL listed under many (I'd say the majority) of rules quotes, and whatnot that fly around here. How often do you see hide or hair of a Section 7 or Section 8 of the OGL?

Not really. You can't copyright rules. And quoting excerpts from a copyrighted work, for purposes of discussion, is very well covered by "fair use"*.

So, claiming that fan sites would get hit by a closed 4e is ignoring the fact that the 3e material isn't being challenged.

Not really correct, either. Wizards is clearly not shy about protecting their IP, regardless of the practical effect on their business (c.f. Living Sarbreenar).

Fan sites are in a Catch-22. They want lots of people to read them and use the material, but if they succeed they're very likely to be shut down by Wizards.

* There are four general guidelines for a claim of fair use: purpose of the use (including whether it's nonprofit), nature of the copyrighted work, amount of the copied material, and the effect on the market for the work. It would have to be a pretty odd post to manage to violate even one of those guidelines.

 

[Filcher]

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.

No, there was also the option of 3rd party folks releasing free 4E material for Free RPG Day, in June. Obviously, without the GSL, that's a bust.

 

[ruemere]

[...]It would have to be a pretty odd post to manage to violate even one of those guidelines.

QFT. Also, the admins of ENWORLD are taking care to maintain clear division between commercial (the shop) and non-profit (news, previews, community services) parts of the site.

I'd like to make it clear that I'm not going to pick up a pitchfork and storm WotC offices in case they pull out of OGL completely. What I'm advocating here is that there is sufficient degree of power in current OGL community to organize itself around common standards of OGL system and maintain current fan base.

I'm going to try Open Source analogy: for Linux and Mozilla foundations there is central core of the product, which is present and common to everyone. The product cores are developed by community of developers and, after release, they are adapted further by manufacturers of specific distributions (specific details differ, so please, do not take this analogy too far).

In case of OGL we have source products of varying degrees of compatibility:
1. We have settings which play nice with core system to the point of importing additional material being trivially easy,
2. We have alternative rule systems, which require conversion with regards to rules and game balance,
3. And finally, we have games, which while sharing base system concept, adhere to different philosophy of play.

While all free types of source products serve to enrich our hobby, the first type is the one which strengthens the community the most, since all third party standalone cities, adventures, expansions are easilly plugged into play. As a specific sample case, while I am running Scarred Lands (SSS) converted to 3.5 edition, the players have been enjoying expanded Banewarrens campaign (Monte Cook) spiced with Chaositech and Books of Eldritch Might (Monte Cook) and several other books (Bonegarden by Necromancer Games). There are also healthy doses of PcGen in the works and one or two pinches of salt from Manual of the Planes by WotC.
So, with one campaign of type 1, I can support at least four different publishers.

Whereas with Black Company by Robert J. Schwalb (Green Ronin), an excellent, excellent, excellent work of love, I will have to wait until we take a break from campaign. It's type 2, possibly even 3, of gaming so, while I had immense fun reading and thinking up ideas, I put it on hold.

Similarly, type 1 products are easier to find supplementary materials 12 months after publication in general, while type 3 products (usually very successful or very short living) due to smaller following, are harder to find decent support for.


Ok, time to dream a bit... please do ignore further rambling if feel it does not belong here.

*dream mode on*
1. Several major figures exchange emails, phone calls and decide to officialy register Society for Support of Shared Gaming Standard Systems.
2. The Society announces compatibility branding system for Gaming Standard System: GSS 3.0, GSS 3.5 and GSS 3.75 and criterias one's product must pass to use one of the brands. Specific types of GSS correspond to OGL 3.0, OGL 3.5 and future version of OGL core system.
3. The Society announces foundation of community of developers for building GSS 3.75, system of reviewing products with regard to standard adherence and system for reviewing changes for development of GSS 3.75.
4. The common guidelines are for GSS compatible products:
- preservation of game balance with regard to one of GSS types,
- new rules may expand but not replace core rules.
5. Guidelines for GSS 3.75.
- simplify complex mechanics, but not at the cost of believability,
- fix unbalanced mechanics, but not at the cost of increased complexity,
- attempt to maintain balance of power of previous editions.

So, for example, GSS 3.75 could include simplified and workable grapple mechanic, but the influence of changes would not neither nerf nor escalate the power of grapple users.
*dream mode off*

Who knows, maybe something similar is happening right now? Time will tell.
For now, I think I will rest my case. I'd like everyone to agree (even with reservations) with me, but I'm a realist. Everyone will decide for themselves, which course of action is the best to take.

All I can do is hope, that 5-10 years from now, this site and this community will continue, and that my concerns will be not be brought into reality.


Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Hussar]

Not really. You can't copyright rules. And quoting excerpts from a copyrighted work, for purposes of discussion, is very well covered by "fair use"*.Not really correct, either. Wizards is clearly not shy about protecting their IP, regardless of the practical effect on their business (c.f. Living Sarbreenar).

Fan sites are in a Catch-22. They want lots of people to read them and use the material, but if they succeed they're very likely to be shut down by Wizards.

* There are four general guidelines for a claim of fair use: purpose of the use (including whether it's nonprofit), nature of the copyrighted work, amount of the copied material, and the effect on the market for the work. It would have to be a pretty odd post to manage to violate even one of those guidelines.

Sorry, but, I could go through the Houserules section of this site and find five violations of the OGL any day of the week. Never mind the creature conversions or module conversions.

Note, I did say copyright, but, the pertinent issue is also OGL. The fact that you NEVER see an OGL appended to any of the posts pretty much makes them in violation.

Doom and gloom predictions of the sky is falling because 4e won't be open aren't helping things any. We already violate the OGL like a ... well a very violated thing. (Waves at Eric's grandma)

 

[Roman]

BTW, because I forgot to say so, thank you for sharing.

Glad to do so and glad that you found it useful.

Really, I have zero problems with someone who says they don't like a game. That's groovy. And, sometimes, it helps to know why they don't like the game, because it might just be that they don't like the game because of something they heard on the intarwebs.

Roman, OTOH, has some very solid reasons for not liking 4e and I pretty much agree that 4e, at least from what we've seen, likely won't be a good game for him.

Thank you for recognising that. Perhaps third party support that would preserve those aspects of 4e that I find to be improvements over 3.5, but changing the aspects I dislike could change that, though that is uncertain.

I'd much MUCH rather people find a game that is a good fit rather than bitch and moan about how game X just doesn't fit their playstyle. Considering the HUGE amount of great games there are out there, I can never understand why people insist on staying with D&D when it just doesn't fit - and they know it.

Well, yes, for me D&D 3.5E edition, though it does have some faults, is a pretty good fit and the Pathfinder RPG is shaping up well too. I fdo still keep tabs on 4E, just in case there is some stunning revelation that would change my mind either from WotC itself or from third parties.

 

[JeffB]

I'm undecided.

Frankly WOTC does not provide products I want to buy/have a need for. And they haven't for many years. Necro. Paizo. The Trolls. Goodman. Those guys would get my gaming $.

I suspect my decision to bother purchasing the 4E books is now riding on just how good KOTS is... or isn't.

 

[Hussar]

Glad to do so and glad that you found it useful.



Thank you for recognising that. Perhaps third party support that would preserve those aspects of 4e that I find to be improvements over 3.5, but changing the aspects I dislike could change that, though that is uncertain.



Well, yes, for me D&D 3.5E edition, though it does have some faults, is a pretty good fit and the Pathfinder RPG is shaping up well too. I fdo still keep tabs on 4E, just in case there is some stunning revelation that would change my mind either from WotC itself or from third parties.

I've realized over the past year or two that there are just far too many great games out there that DO fit with whatever a given person's playstyle is to waste time bemoaning how a given one doesn't.

It's not 1982 guys. There are LOTS of games out there. Test drive one today.