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

[Graf]

If wizards "maintains quality" then I'd buy 4e.

Without competition from 3rd parties though quality will suffer (it's just a fact of life).
3.x was good because wizards had to work for their marginal customer; they had to have higher production values, smarter/more creative designers.
If they produced poor books people had alternatives, sales numbers fell.

If it's completely closed Hasbro will have them turning out 5 books a month with nary an editor or a playtester in sight.
When you live quarter to quarter and you're the only game in town things can get bad fast.

IMHO natch.

 

[breschau]

If wizards "maintains quality" then I'd buy 4e.

Without competition from 3rd parties though quality will suffer (it's just a fact of life).
3.x was good because wizards had to work for their marginal customer; they had to have higher production values, smarter/more creative designers.
If they produced poor books people had alternatives, sales numbers fell.

If it's completely closed Hasbro will have them turning out 5 books a month with nary an editor or a playtester in sight.
When you live quarter to quarter and you're the only game in town things can get bad fast.

IMHO natch.

That argument doesn't track. Sure, competition forces companies to make better games. But, seeing what White Wolf did with Exalted made D&D better. With 3rd party D&D products, not so much. With the OGL, any crunch put out could be swiped by WotC, so that's free design, but the vast majority of it just didn't work for D&D. As for fluff, that couldn't be used anyway as it was Product Identity. But, you can't copyright ideas, so they're up for grabs too.

Supply and demand. If people buy everything WotC puts out, they will ramp up the production schedule. If people don't buy everything, they will cut back. Gluts of product are caused by the publisher attempting to meet demand, then demand falling off. When the publisher puts out too much (i.e. more than the market can bear) they lose money and can go out of business. Open or closed has nothing to do with how many books WotC will put out. Sure, without all the 3rd party products, they might put out a few more types of products (more campaign settings, adventures, etc) but it won't cause them to put out 5 books a month.

The vast majority of gamers go to the bookstore and pick up the books on the shelf, not from the net. Most of the 3rd party stuff is POD or pdf only. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a limited market. Then there's the groups that won't ever touch 3rd party stuff with a 10 meter cattle prod. Either way, the 3rd party stuff is an exceptionally small and marginal market.

I don't need Iron Heroes because I have D&D. I don't need Pathfinder because I have D&D. I didn't ever hear of either until I came here. I went to the store, bought the books there (WotC only on the shelves) and went home to play. Completely unaware that there were alternatives. And time after time the quality I've seen is nothing compared to WotC books. The 3rd party people need the editors and playtesters.

Poor quality = poor sales. That's why WotC books outsell all comers. Even the most randomly obscure WotC book out-strips the most wildly popular 3rd party D&D book.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I don't believe everything from WoTC equates 100% quality. I've been more impressed from some third parties work like Monte Cook's and others. There is a lot of substandard product but also some good product as well.

In some ways, Third Parties cut down on WoTC quality by letting their own "name stars" work elsewhere, instead of for them. Without the OGL, we would have never seen a Green Ronin or a Malhavoc Press. While both companies have been great for third-party support of D&D, it does hurt Wizards somewhat because instead of the people working for those companies (or choosing another game system altogether, which usually has less popularity), they have the incentive to start their own companies, use the D&D rules, and potentially make more money than they'd get strictly from a freelance perspective.

So, while this has been a boom for us the consumers, I see it as bad for Wizards, as they basically created incentive to get former employees and freelancers to work for themselves and get to use the D&D game. I could see them trying to reverse this trend or at least get a "tax" on the third party revenue.

 

[Steely Dan]

Of course I would buy 4th Ed, regardless of whether it was open or not – I have always been a bit snobby about 3rd party products (since Mayfair etc).

 

[pawsplay]

So, while this has been a boom for us the consumers, I see it as bad for Wizards, as they basically created incentive to get former employees and freelancers to work for themselves and get to use the D&D game.

And yet, 3.5 was a huge success from both a design standpoint and a financial standpoint. If we judge 3.5 by the probable effect of 3rd party products, based on how it compares to 3.0, it would appear the OGL actually helped WotC in some unspecified way. Complete Warrior absolutely beats the snot out of Sword and Fist, and probably made more money, too.

 

[Dragonblade]

Unless you count Dragon Magazine as 3rd party (and I do) I never bought any 3rd party stuff for 3.0 or 3.5, except the first part of Rappan-Athuk form Necromancer in pdf form. Part of that is my situation, I live in Japan and Amazon Japan does not carry much 3rd party stuff. The game stores here carry no non-Japanese stuff either, so I have to buy all my stuff from Amazon Japan.

I would like to see 3rd party stuff in 4E, but it really does not matter to me one way or the other. I am sure WOTC will adequately support 4E.

Yellow Submarine in Shinjuku carried English language WotC D&D books when I was living in Tokyo in 2001. Do they no longer do so?

 

[Zaruthustran]

I'd buy 4E even if it were closed to 3rd party. I'm a D&D player; have been since 1981 or so. Of course I'll buy the current edition.

But would I prefer that 4E be open? Sure. I tend to only buy 1st party stuff (I have concerns about mechanical balance), but it's fun to read about the creative work done by 3rd party devs. The idea being that there are a whole lot of smart people who enjoy D&D but don't happen to work at WotC, and those people have interesting things to say. I'd like for WotC to allow those people to speak.

At this time in history, though, even if 4E were totally closed there'd be plenty of 3rd party content available on the Internet. It may not be well edited, it may have primitive layout, and it may completely lack art, but the content would be there. WotC can't stop people from releasing homebrew (or 3rd party) D&D content any more than the RIAA can stop people from releasing free music. Which is why, IMHO, Dancey's idea to recognize that reality and just officially give away D&D was so genius.

-z

 

[kennew142]

I agree with Zarathustran. I will buy 4e D&D because it's the current version of the game I love.

Open 4e D&D with permissive GSL = best option.

Closed 4e D&D = worse option, but not enough to stop me from buying or playing.

 

[Roman]

It is ironic, that even though I made the poll, I did not include an option, which captures my position effectively.

 

[LowSpine]

It needs to be at least a little open. TSR tried to do the whole Microsoft ball breaker thing and it killed them. I think one of the reasons 3.5 is so popular is because of the OGL. Yeah - no THAC0, etc but there is not that much difference between 3,2 or 1.