D&D 4E Would you buy 4E if it were not open/had no licenses for 3rd party companies?
1000 votes is actually a significant sample. It is a commonly used sample size in various large-scale surveys and opinion polls. Of course, in this case the sample, although of significant size, is not randomly selected, but biased to a certain segment of the RPG market. It is not easy to see the direction of the bias, however, since on the one hand the poll is on a d20 website known to only a small selection of gamers that probably care disproportionately about open gaming, but on the other hand it is on the 4E board, which pushes the bias in the opposite direction. We simply do not have the data to resolve this.
Still, it has been an interesting poll and I thank everybody for participating.
Still, it has been an interesting poll and I thank everybody for participating.
Hussar said:
Actually... if you don't have an OGL appended to the post (or linked, whatever), you *can't* be in violation of the OGL. The OGL only applies to things it's linked to.
Without using the OGL, you're back to regular trademark, copyright and patent law. The OGL is designed to allow you to bypass copyright (etc.) restrictions. If you don't use it, then it's regular law that covers any violations of IP you commit.
Cheers!
mhacdebhandia
Explorer
I'll be buying the Fourth Edition core rules whether or not Wizards of the Coast ever offers a license to any other company.
This is despite the fact that I enjoyed Arcana Unearthed, most of Malhavoc's other Complete Book of products, Iron Heroes, True 20, and Pathfinder.
First of all, the existing OGL is more than enough to cover standalone games.
Second, as much as I enjoy running Rise of the Runelords, Paizo doesn't want to support Fourth Edition right now and I don't particularly want to play their version of the game. If they're eventually in a position to support Fourth Edition with adventures, I'd be more than willing to take a look at them, but for me the point of Pathfinder was always that "Paizo was producing good adventures for the game I play", not that "Paizo was producing good adventures for the game I play".
Third, supplements aren't that important to me. I really liked Monte's Complete Book of products, but I never really used them all that much. They're a luxury I can do without - and, historically, most popular third-party supplements seem to be aimed at people who are highly dissatisfied with some element of the official rules (psionics, for instance), among which group I generally haven't counted myself.
This is despite the fact that I enjoyed Arcana Unearthed, most of Malhavoc's other Complete Book of products, Iron Heroes, True 20, and Pathfinder.
First of all, the existing OGL is more than enough to cover standalone games.
Second, as much as I enjoy running Rise of the Runelords, Paizo doesn't want to support Fourth Edition right now and I don't particularly want to play their version of the game. If they're eventually in a position to support Fourth Edition with adventures, I'd be more than willing to take a look at them, but for me the point of Pathfinder was always that "Paizo was producing good adventures for the game I play", not that "Paizo was producing good adventures for the game I play".
Third, supplements aren't that important to me. I really liked Monte's Complete Book of products, but I never really used them all that much. They're a luxury I can do without - and, historically, most popular third-party supplements seem to be aimed at people who are highly dissatisfied with some element of the official rules (psionics, for instance), among which group I generally haven't counted myself.
Big Mac
Explorer
I voted other - here's why:
I think there is a fundamental flaw in WotCs marketing plan. WotC is totally focused on rules and pays too little attention to the importance of setting.
I am a fan of D&D from the 2nd edition days when there were lots of campaign settings. Specifically, I'm a Spelljammer fan and like to be able to use different campaign settings as different locations in the D&D multiverse.
That is the sort of environment that I want for D&D games. I'm not against WotC creating new rules, but I don't want old doors to be closed in my face. If I'm going to be tempted in by 4th edition I want it to do what Paizo is claiming Pathfinder RPG is doing and be "backward compatible". But I don't exactly mean backward compatible in the rule sense. I mean backward compatible in the setting sense.
I know that WotC say that they need to start again, but the fact that they have stopped settings like Forgotten Realms before there was any product to deal with Al-Qadim, Maztica or Kara-Tur means that fans like me are going to be cautious about product support for the setting. Going back to the beginning is a bit of an Incy Wincy Spider strategy, because despite any improvements in the rules that 4e might give us my confidence that 4e Forgotten Realms will deliver a world that is more complete than 3e Forgotten Realms is now shaken. And if we only get a year of FRCS, I don't see how that could possibly replace the variety of books we have now.
I think that the 3rd edition game mechanics were much better than earlier rules, but WotC just don't want to support all the background elements (fluff) that I want to have in my game. Maybe they don't need to support all the things I want, but they need to convince me that they will let other people provide the support that they are not going to give me themselves.
The official sites, the PDFs of old TSR stuff, the ESD Conversion Agreement and the Ravenloft and Dragonlance licences made 3rd edition just that little bit bigger and better to me. They created a D&D game that was more attractive to me.
I want to be able to pick up any out of print OD&D, 1st edition AD&D, 2nd edition AD&D, 3rd edition D&D, 3.5 edition D&D or third party d20 System product and bring the fluff from that product into a 4th edition game. A GSL that gets old stuff pulped or banned will not help me to do that. A GSL that encourages publishers to kill off old products will not persuade me to adopt 4e - it will just make me resent 4e and think of it as "the thing that killed my D&D fun".
Like it or not the stuff that the OGL (and d20 STL) brought into the hobby is now thought of as a part of D&D culture by many people. So to me killing off those product lines (even if it is in exchange for new 4e product lines) is a punishment to the fans who bought 3rd edition core rulebooks to use with those products.
I want Wizards of the Coast do the following:
If/when Wizards of the Coast do all that, the campaign setting content that I desire will start to become available. I'll only consider buying the three core rulebooks after there is some fluff I desire available for 4e.
There are a couple of other things that WotC could do to get more cash out of me than their 4e products would:
I've mentioned Print on Demand for out of print products. I think that WotC should create a department that is dedicated to providing this sort of service. If I could go to a WotC shop and buy PoD versions of the TSR gamebooks I missed, there would be quite a few reprints I'd want.
I think that WotC could improve on the current 3e ESD Conversion Agreement, by finding the best conversions, paying the author of the converted material and then bundling the converted material into the back of the old books (PDF or PoD) to create things that are 4e compatible. (I'm hearing rumors that conversions are planned to be in closed off areas of Gleemax and done by unpaid fans.) That unpaid conversion thing has already been tried for 3rd edition and it takes too long. If some sort of PDF/PoD commision was offered on 4e conversions that WotC wanted to push through, the process could be speeded up.
If WotC can do that sort of stuff, then I'll look at 4th edition as something that will last for as long as I want it to last. If they don't do that sort of stuff, I'll have no confidence that they won't cancel 4e and try to force me buy 5e as soon as they can get away with it.
I need to be convinced once and for all, that 4e is about "cool new stuff" and not about squeesing as much profit as possible out of the pockets of RPG customers.
I think there is a fundamental flaw in WotCs marketing plan. WotC is totally focused on rules and pays too little attention to the importance of setting.
I am a fan of D&D from the 2nd edition days when there were lots of campaign settings. Specifically, I'm a Spelljammer fan and like to be able to use different campaign settings as different locations in the D&D multiverse.
That is the sort of environment that I want for D&D games. I'm not against WotC creating new rules, but I don't want old doors to be closed in my face. If I'm going to be tempted in by 4th edition I want it to do what Paizo is claiming Pathfinder RPG is doing and be "backward compatible". But I don't exactly mean backward compatible in the rule sense. I mean backward compatible in the setting sense.
I know that WotC say that they need to start again, but the fact that they have stopped settings like Forgotten Realms before there was any product to deal with Al-Qadim, Maztica or Kara-Tur means that fans like me are going to be cautious about product support for the setting. Going back to the beginning is a bit of an Incy Wincy Spider strategy, because despite any improvements in the rules that 4e might give us my confidence that 4e Forgotten Realms will deliver a world that is more complete than 3e Forgotten Realms is now shaken. And if we only get a year of FRCS, I don't see how that could possibly replace the variety of books we have now.
I think that the 3rd edition game mechanics were much better than earlier rules, but WotC just don't want to support all the background elements (fluff) that I want to have in my game. Maybe they don't need to support all the things I want, but they need to convince me that they will let other people provide the support that they are not going to give me themselves.
The official sites, the PDFs of old TSR stuff, the ESD Conversion Agreement and the Ravenloft and Dragonlance licences made 3rd edition just that little bit bigger and better to me. They created a D&D game that was more attractive to me.
I want to be able to pick up any out of print OD&D, 1st edition AD&D, 2nd edition AD&D, 3rd edition D&D, 3.5 edition D&D or third party d20 System product and bring the fluff from that product into a 4th edition game. A GSL that gets old stuff pulped or banned will not help me to do that. A GSL that encourages publishers to kill off old products will not persuade me to adopt 4e - it will just make me resent 4e and think of it as "the thing that killed my D&D fun".
Like it or not the stuff that the OGL (and d20 STL) brought into the hobby is now thought of as a part of D&D culture by many people. So to me killing off those product lines (even if it is in exchange for new 4e product lines) is a punishment to the fans who bought 3rd edition core rulebooks to use with those products.
I want Wizards of the Coast do the following:
- All WotC 3.x D&D products to continue to be available to buy as PDFs (and hopefully Print on Demand books) so that I can continue to play 3rd edition until I am ready to move over to 4th edition. As a player I want to be able to choose to play 4th edition because it is cool - not because I have my other options removed.
- All 1st and 2nd edition TSR D&D products to remain available as PDFs (and again hopefully as Print on Demand books) so that I can get hold of the campaign settings and other things that WotC didn't want to convert to 3rd edition. (It is important that core rulebooks are included in this PDF archive, so that people can compare them to the new core rules when making conversions.)
- The ESD Conversion Agreement to be updated to allow both 3rd and 4th edition conversions. I want the GSL to work for fans as well as third party publishers (or a parallel licence to do the same thing as the GSL).
- Margaret Weis Productions to be given a new licence that allows them to continue to sell their 3rd edition Dragonlance PDFs after 4th edition comes out. (I'm not saying that WotC should give away something for nothing, so I think a 50/50 deal on PDF profits would be a good place for negotiations to start.) I'm not a big fan of Ravenloft, but the same deal should be offered for third party 3rd edition Ravenloft PDFs.
- Greyhawk fans to be given some sort of intellectual compensation for the removal of Living Greyhawk. Perhaps Canonfire could be given status as the new official Greyhawk website and given a not for profit licence to host all the RPGA adventures and other Living Greyhawk content. If they could compile this 3rd edition stuff together and then make a series of 4th edition conversions that would really add value to me.
- The GSL to give players a trademark that means that something "works as a D&D campaign setting". I don't want the same thing to be stuck on the back of 4th edition d20 Modern books or Star Wars books. The current d20 System logo is pretty meaningless.
- D&D to work without having to subscribe to a website. By all means put fancy do-dads on your website, but if non-subscribers are going to be banned from getting access to things like character creation software, I'm going to feel like I'm only getting half a game.
- Free (to download) GSL Character Creation software that is created in such a way, that every publisher (and DM) can create add on files that import their own races, classes, skills, feats and other rules. I'll settle for this being something that subscribers get access to a few months before non-subscribers, but considering that gaming groups waste time on character creation, I think it is in your interest to make all of your customers think of that process as being as easy as World of Warcraft.
- A final updated version of the d20 STL that says that products originally published under the d20 STL can continue to be sold as PDFs (or Print on Demand books) as long as they are clearly labeled as not being compatible with the current version of d20 System rules. (I think that a crossed out d20 System logo, or a faded d20 System logo with 3e printed on top, would be a good way to relabel things that were designed for the 3rd edition version of the d20 System. I'm sure that the legal text of the updated d20 STL could be adjusted to point out that out of print D&D rulebooks are required to use the product.)
- Publishers to be given a carrot to encourage them to create 4th edition content, without a stick to prevent them from publishing 3rd edition content. (Customers who bought 3rd edition rulebooks in good faith should be able to carry on using their books with third party products until the third party publisher wants to move over to the cool new rules.)
- And last but not least: a new licence, similar to the ESD conversion agreement, that allows fans to buy 4th edition products and retro-convert them to back to 3.x or earlier rules. There are still customers out there who prefer TSRs older rules. I'm not one of them, but I think that 3rd edition overlooked these people. As far as I'm concerned a customer is a customer and if someone wants to play a 1st edition Eberron game WotC should make this easier for them to do.
If/when Wizards of the Coast do all that, the campaign setting content that I desire will start to become available. I'll only consider buying the three core rulebooks after there is some fluff I desire available for 4e.
There are a couple of other things that WotC could do to get more cash out of me than their 4e products would:
I've mentioned Print on Demand for out of print products. I think that WotC should create a department that is dedicated to providing this sort of service. If I could go to a WotC shop and buy PoD versions of the TSR gamebooks I missed, there would be quite a few reprints I'd want.
I think that WotC could improve on the current 3e ESD Conversion Agreement, by finding the best conversions, paying the author of the converted material and then bundling the converted material into the back of the old books (PDF or PoD) to create things that are 4e compatible. (I'm hearing rumors that conversions are planned to be in closed off areas of Gleemax and done by unpaid fans.) That unpaid conversion thing has already been tried for 3rd edition and it takes too long. If some sort of PDF/PoD commision was offered on 4e conversions that WotC wanted to push through, the process could be speeded up.
If WotC can do that sort of stuff, then I'll look at 4th edition as something that will last for as long as I want it to last. If they don't do that sort of stuff, I'll have no confidence that they won't cancel 4e and try to force me buy 5e as soon as they can get away with it.
I need to be convinced once and for all, that 4e is about "cool new stuff" and not about squeesing as much profit as possible out of the pockets of RPG customers.
