Aubrey the Malformed's page

Living in Rugby.

I'm experiencing difficulties posting into one of my game threads (Aubrey's Rise of the Runelords gameplay thread). I type the post into the box and hit submit, but it doesn't post through to the board and instead simply reappears, with the text I wrote still in the box and unposted. Hitting submit several times doesn't work and then closing out loses the post entirely. This is a problem I've experienced before here, so I don't think it is an issue on the individual thread. I had just posted to another thread with no difficulties.

Why would they say anything? They don't normally. It seems to be policy not to comment on these matters, and very sensible too.

All IMHO of course.

I don't mind 'revised' systems, which is what 3.5 is to 3.9 (and apparently essentials is to 4.0) Vampire got better (to me) with each 'revision') (Though it's now called 3rd on drivethrurpg)

Major changes in mechanics rate more the 'edition' change to me. BECMI to AD&D is an 'edition' 2e to 3e is an 'edition' 3e to 4e is an 'edition' If Pathfinder 2 is just cleaning and clarification of rules it's a 'revision' if it's new mechanics, it's an edition.

Does it really matter? If you've got to buy a new rulebook, you've still spent the money irrespective of any definitional niceties.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

Josh M. wrote:

And besides that, didn't Essentials just come out a year or two ago?

Essentials isn't a new edition. It's fully compatible with the version of 4e brought out earlier, only a few of the character classes are redesigned. So there's less than meets the eye to that, especially considering the 3.0 to 3.5 change introduced more changes that Essentials did to 4e.

Now we're down to parsing editions?

"3.5 isn't a new edition. It's fully compatible with the version of 3.x brought out earlier, only a few elements were redesigned. So there's less than meets the eye to that, especially considering the 2nd Ed to 3.x change introduced more changes that [sic] 3.5 did to 3.0"

Seriously. I expect 5e to contain elements of 4.x as well as previous editions. I'll be curious to see a) how big the PHB is and b) how much it is. Will it be a Pathfinder sized tome?

3.5 is not fully compatible with 3.0. For example, spell effects with the same name in 3.5 work differently to 3.0. Character classes with the same name work differently. There are multiple ways in which 3.5 differs from 3.0. Essentials, on the other hand, uses exactly the same rules as the 4e issued from the start. The difference is that some classes have been amended, but even these are strictly speaking new character classes rather than changes to the old ones (which still exist, and have not been superseded). The character generator has both sets of classes, Essentials and non-Essentials, in it and they work seamlessly together. Unlike with 3.0 and 3.5. And 3.5 is hardly errata to 3.0 - you don't normally have to re-buy rulebooks to get the errata.

And besides that, didn't Essentials just come out a year or two ago?

Essentials isn't a new edition. It's fully compatible with the version of 4e brought out earlier, only a few of the character classes are redesigned. So there's less than meets the eye to that, especially considering the 3.0 to 3.5 change introduced more changes that Essentials did to 4e.

Well quite frankly, I don't see any reason why a corporation would do something as costly and controversial as making yet another edition of D&D unless the current edition isn't making enough money to meet whatever goals they set for it. Do you really think they are going to make a new edition just because the designers feel like it or because a lot of people like that new Pathfinder game? That's just not going to happen. 4E split the community and cost them a lot of customers. They have to bring in enough customers that left (and maybe some new ones) to make D&D a big enough seller to meet Hasbro's goal for the brand or it's goodbye official D&D as a roelplaying game, and hello D&D shelved and mined for IP.

New editions are part of the cycle of the gaming industry - it forces people to buy new product if they want to get with the new thing. This happens in plenty of other games too. I'll admit, this seems a bit fast, though not necessarily incredibly so. And I also agree that healing the split (also known as stealing back Paizo's customers) is probably on their agenda too - it's been said as such. But we don't know what Hasbro's or WotC's goals are for the brand, or whether it has hit them.

I don't think anyone is understanding what I'm trying to say, so I'll try again. 4E wasn't successful by whatever metric WotC uses to judge such things, so they released Essentials (a more 1E like 4E). It wasn't successful either, or they wouldn't be announcing a new edition so soon. In what bizzaro world does anyone in their right mind think another go at the 4E rules set with better marketing and a different name will be successful this time? Do you really think they learned so little from the poor reception of 4E that they are going to try to do essentially the same thing for a third time when they know from experience that it does not work?

Well, there's a difference between a new 5e game incorporating elements of 4e that were considered to work, and just rehashing 4e. A rehash with different marketing probably wouldn't work, so I would agree with you on that. But 2e contained (quite a lot) of elements of 1e, and while 3e was a bigger step it still basically had a lot of elements from that too. 4e actually is very similar to 3e is many ways, especially with the d20 mechanic and a lot of combat. I mean, that's what gets people bent out of shape considering whether something "is" D&D. But you also said (or at least strongly implied) that anything with elements from 4e would be doomed to fail, which I just don't agree with. And I'd be very surprised if nothing of 4e is carried over to 5e.

Since I didn't say that, I couldn't tell you. I can tell you that "It doesn't matter how awesome the marketing is, if 5E has healing surges and powers as a core part of it's combat system (which it would have to if it's based on 4E) it will be a massive failure" doesn't speak to what I want from a new edition of D&D, nor is it necessarily accurate despite the emphatic tone. From what I'm reading, the new version doesn't seem to be very similar to 4e, though I'll judge if that's a good or bad thing when I see it.

Well, Cory, 4e isn't actually a massive failure and it has those. It maybe hasn't been as successful as they wanted but plenty of people play it happily, even if it isn't your cup of tea, and you certainly have no basis for suggesting it has "failed" since no one but WotC have access to WotC P&L figures. I'm more likely to not be interested in 5e if it does turn into some backward-looking scramble for what some people seem to consider the "essence of D&D" - which suggests that pandering to the more atavistic element in the hobby may actually alienate current 4e players. Projecting your preferences on to the "community" ignores the diversity of opinions on this subject.

DDI-exclusive content is what I'm referring to. It's only available to you while you have a subscription.

Yes, you can download it.

What happens if your copy becomes destroyed for whatever reason? You have to have DDI subscription to download it again (legally). It's not purchased information.

I know how to back-up stuff, and I do, but honestly, I would rather have that information in print or purchasable as a download accessible from my account. Not just as an on/off switch.

What if you buy a book or a magazine and your house burns down? It's the same thing. The "exclusive" stuff beyond the tools are the magazines. I have an extensive collection of the Paizo-era mags and I know I'll have a devil of a time replacing those if I lose them - and Paizo won't help me out either if they don't have a back copy, they certainly won't reprint it for me, and even if they did they wouldn't just give it to me.

Paizo might offer you something downloadable on your account but it ain't for free - you've already purchased it as an individual item (and probably its much more expensive than a single month of the DDI). Anyway, if you subscribe to DDI, and then unsubscribe, and then resubscribe - they are still all there for download. You can now go into DDI and download everything they have available for a single month's subscription - which is a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing a load of books and magazines. I'm still struggling to see how that is a rip-off. Yes, you have the files at Paizo on your account for the foreseeable future, but it is an expensive service and the issue with DDI is (currently) easily and cheaply addressed by resubscription.

I feel that I'm getting much more out of DDI than I ever did with my PF AP subscription...

Yes, I subscribe. If you play, and certainly if you DM, 4e it is well worth it for the labour-saving tools. To be honest, the yearly cost of the DDI is about equal to a month's worth of Paizo subscription material - I have to question the implication that somehow DDI is a rip-off.

As for renting information, both Dungeon and Dragon are fully downloadable as pdfs to keep on your hard drive. My main concern is actually the online tools, as if I don't like 5e they probably won't keep them going all that long after changeover. But we'll see what happens. And I'm renting convenience, not information - all of the info in the tools is fully availabe in book or pdf format, just not as immediately usable, with the possible exception of the errata.

Aubrey, I'm with you about sub-systems of 4E. I really can't think of anything that needs it's own special table to check all the time. And if there is, it's 9/10 in the DMG for the DM to look at (and it's 1 table for a slew of things). But I get the same sort of playstyle when I run v3.5 or Pathfinder. Which is why I think it falls more on the group running the game than only the mechanics of the system.

For example, I'm running the Sons of Gruumsh adventure (Forgotten Realms, v3.5) for my group and I find a lot of things such as actions out-of-combat, expectations of play, combat, and exploration very similiar to that of 4E. We still needed trail rations (even though I hardly track them), torches, mundane equipment, ammo, yadda-yadda for this adventure as we do for 4E ones. The differences are seen in combat, obviously, but this plays more to 4E favor than v3.5. I just think it comes down to expecations of one's abilities and how those abilities work within the setting/game. A person who loves playing 4E is going to be disappointed in say....v3.5 Flaming Sphere (2d6 fire, save for 1/2) as it's pathetic compared to 4E's 2d6 + Intelligence modifier fire damage and an additional 1d4 + Intelligence fire damage on their turn and it's a zone. But they often don't take into account a 3E monster's HP being almost 1/3 the total amount of a creatures in 4E is and so the damage expression makes sense. But many people go into 4E or 3E or 2E with expectations of the game they currently favor the most instead of an idea of not comparing at all and basing it on it's own merits within that system.

I personally can't identify any really compelling differences in the way we played as a group in 3e and the way we played as a group in 4e. The differences mostly reside in how I personally prepare for a game as DM. Once you are used to a system, I discovered you can pretty much recreate all situations which are covered in the 3e DMG and then some.

4e doesn't actually set out subsystems for much - I'm thinking diseases, poisons and mounted combat, and them I'm a bit stumped after that. 4e provides a framework, and not much else. What I think you experienced was probably a WotC adventure which, in common with most, wasn't well-written. All the DM'ing I've done with 4e has been with self-made adventures, and I've not really experienced what you described. In fact, the framework - and I'm not just talking abut skill challenges, which can be useful but are probably best used sparingly - actually makes things much easier creatively, in my experience, and doesn't lock down anything. What normally confounds is the expectation that 4e is like 3e - it isn't, it is a radical departure that, for those who like the system, jettisoned a load of prescriptive garbage in 3e that did actively make the DMs life harder on may levels. But you have to understand that what looks like a gap - "What? No crafting!!!?" - is basically a slimming down of a bloated ruleset where marginal activities are filleted out for brevity and ease of use. If they should arise the framework can simply be used to improvise something specific to the players and the situation, not what the Great Design Gods think is necessarily appropriate. And your example concerning Diplomacy is perfectly viable in 4e - that's an issue of play-style, not rules.

It's an odd comment that 4e is closer to 0e or 1e prima facie - and blatantly false in many ways. Except that the framework allows for a much more free-form approach to interacting with the gameworld com pared with the subsystem-frenzy of 3e - "Fallen into lava? Let's check page xxx!" The framework isn't the same as the earlier editions, since they didn't have skills for a start. But what it also offers is a way to formalise the process to some extent, reduce hand-waving on the DM's part and make more use of the PC's abilities, and provide experience.

Where did you leave him?

Don't bother with a barbarian - no one can top Gittik.

Purely for academic interest (and to help those not from these shores with pronunciation) - really - I present to you a cornucopia of Yorkshire jokes.

***

Yorkshire man takes his cat to the vet.
Yorkshireman: "Ayup, lad, I need to talk to thee about me cat."
Vet: "Is it a tom ?"
Yorkshireman: "Nay, I've browt it wi' us."

***

A Yorkshireman's dog dies and as it was a favourite pet he decides to have a gold statue made by a jeweller to remember the dog by.
Yorkshireman: "Can tha mek us a gold statue of yon dog?"
Jeweller: "Do you want it 18 carat?"
Yorkshireman: "No I want it chewin' a bone, yer daft begger!"

***

A Yorkshireman's wife dies and the widower decides that her headstone should have the words "She were Thine" engraved on it.
He calls the stone mason, who assures him that the headstone will be ready a few days after the funeral. True to his word the stone mason calls the widower to say that the headstone is ready and would he like to come and have a look.
When the widower gets there he takes one look at the stone to see that it's been engraved "She were Thin".

He explodes - good grief, man, you've left the flamin' "e" out!
The stone mason apologises and assures the poor widower that it will be rectified the following morning.

Next day comes and the widower returns to the stone mason - "There you go sir, I've put the "e" on the stone for you"..
The widower looks at the stone and then reads out aloud - "E, She were Thin".

***

Bloke from Barnsley with a sore backside asks chemist "Nah then lad, does tha sell arse cream?"
Chemist replies "Aye, Magnum or Cornetto?"

Assault by black pudding (the food, not the ooze) is doubtless on the cards.

Holiday was good, thank you for asking. Journey there and back, not so much. We went to Lanzarote. The place was nice - sunshine and warmth (mostly) - and we didn't do much other than mooch about. But the flight was four hours in a very cramped, hot plane with a ravening eighteen-month-old strapped to me and that I could have done without (and so could, James, frankly). But I managed to miss the worst weather and travel conditions in the UK all winter - snow and ice, train derailments at Euston - so I'm probably well ahead on points.

This is largely already addressed in 4e. You have at-will, encounter and daily powers. The dailies are the remnants of the Vancian system and still pretty much work the same way - the parallels are obvious when you consider the 4e wizard class - though in practice you can only change then when you level (so it is more like a sorcerer in practice - though it seems that the definitions of Vancian casting seem to vary between different people). The encounters and the at-wills offer less powerful abilities which can be reused more often. At low levels the encounters and at-wills figure a lot but as dailies are accumulated they begin to figure more and more. So, arguably, we already have a system that provides this. Whether 5e works like that, of course, is another matter.

Fine with me.

Well, those comments are a bit short on detail. The first one makes me wonder. Given that D&D is a class-based system, how will the modularity work where you can swap out the social side of a bard, and still have him be a bard (for example)? What is essential bardiness, or indeed essential to other character classes?

As for the second, that should be less difficult as they have already achieved that in 4e.

It's scary, but yeah, you finally said something I'll agree with.

I'm obviously wrong, then.

We have history and evidence.

We know that TSR was bankrupt, and that 3.0 was release with the OGL and was very successful.

Well, TSR didn't go bust because there was no OGL. It went bust because it was very badly managed. I've still yet to see evidence that the OGL really benefitted WotC other than this comment of "Well, 3e came out, and the OGL came out at the same time, and 3e was successful, so it must be the OGL". My experience tells me differently. You can have correlation without causation.

We know that 4E was released with every brand advantage, but a very limiting GSL and it has been declining while Pathfinder, released at a HUGE brand (among other) disadvantages has been growing to the point it has outsold 4E the last two quarters.

FLGS aren't the market anymore. Internet sales are.

Well, there may be something to that, in that the GSL was a turn-off to previous publishers who had been using the OGL. That said, I don't think Paizo's disadvantage was that huge - in fact, I'd say it made its name off the back of Dungeon and Dragon, and anyone aware of those magazines (which would have been most D&D players) will have heard of Paizo. And we don't know what would have happened if the GSL had been less restrictive - would Paizo have thrown its lot in with 4e as opposed to 3e? And even then, what impact would this have had on 4e - would 4e have been a raging success with Paizo? Or would someone else have released a 3e derivative for disgruntled 3e fans, and done over both Paizo and WotC?

That said, I'd be interested to see how the licencing works for 3PP in 5e. My hunch is they will probably sign up a few on specific licences, so the 5e IP isn't open source but a reasonable number of 3PPs will be invited to participate. (I have nothing to back that up, and probably the devil is in the detail anyway, but it would seem a reasonable half-way house for WotC. AND it might help address the OGL quality issue.)

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

ruemere wrote:

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

[...]

The OGL is bad for WotC - it was clearly good for its competitors in that it helped them, that was the problem.
[...]

This particular generalization is false.

Er, no, it isn't - it allowed Paizo to set itself up as the "true inheritor" of D&D, and to continue to support 3e after WotC wanted to move on to to 4e. That's had a big impact on WotC.

You have used present tense. We've had three years since the market split, and more since the WotC decided to divorce itself from OGL.

Additionally, since we're talking about the past, the OGL was vital to the success of d20, and subsequently success of the d20 and DnD brands, thus making OGL good for WotC.

Your statement is false. If you've said something along the lines "OGL would be bad for 5E" it would be neither true nor false - it would be a prediction. The original statement is untrue and misleading... WotC are not playing in OGL sandbox at this moment, and so claiming that OGL is in any way bad for them is wrong.

The OGL IS (yes, right now, in the present) bad for WotC because it has allowed a competitor to continue to support an old version of the game and steal market share from the old version. I'm failing to see how this is good. The OGL may once have been good for WotC in that it allowed third party publishers to effectively promoted the 3e ruleset (though I really question that too) but in case you haven't noticed the fact that they are still able to do so when WotC has produced 4e and announced 5e clearly can't be good. To suggest that "WotC are not playing in OGL sandbox at this moment, and so claiming that OGL is in any way bad for them is wrong" and therefore unaffected by the OGL simply fails to notice that Paizo would not have been able to create PF without the OGL, and PF is a stongly competitive product against WotC. These products do not operate separately in a vacuum, they compete for attention, time and dollars (or pounds). My statement isn't false.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

ruemere wrote:

At this moment, OGL is not affecting WotC directly - they disengaged from manufacturing under this particular license. Their products are not generally compatible with OGL games, and the customers at this stage are unlikely to stampede in either direction.

Define directly. It has fostered competition in WotC home patch - playing D&D. It's not even a rival system - it's their system, which they no longer control. Just because they don't produce OGL compatible stuff doesn't change that - in fact, that's the heart of the matter.

(the "directly" bit comes further below)

What's past, is past. This is no longer WotC home patch. Just like it's no longer TSR's. If you insist on referring to past events, please use correct tense.

What we have now are several different RPG markets, one of them composed of common standards (OGL), another one monopolized by WotC (and GSL). At some point in the future Wizards will invoke 10.1 section GSL killing competing products (just like they closed D20 STL, though D20 STL licensees had the benefit of OGL safe harbor) and WotC-monopolized market based on 4E will cease to exist.

WotC new product is marketed as brand-uniting product, and the word of folks is charge is that they "we're exploring options for third party publishers" (Mike Mearls).

Consequently, all we can say at this point is that WotC recognizes existence of OGL. Nothing else.
Since they lack a competing product, OGL is not affecting WotC directly.

Let me rephrase:
4E is not competing with OGL games at this moment - we have had 3 years since the market split, and customers are not going to suddenly stampede to Pathfinder or to 4E. At best, some guys are going to spent their income on both, and a few groups are going to change systems, but this is unlikely to be a massive event.

No, what's past isn't past if it affects the present. See my comments above. You seem to have this curious notion that WotC and Paizo operate in parallel universes because they are peddling different gaming systems. That notion is certainly false. Your understanding of how markets work (i.e. basic economics) is a bit lacking.

Of course, by announcing advent of 5E, WotC are shooting themselves in the foot, telling all their loyal fans that their cherished game is going into forced obsolescence - with official support dwindling to nothingness, and 3rd party folk (if any remain by that point) being cut off. The new game is unlikely to be here before Christmas (metaphorically).

That's not the reaction I've seen so far from 4e people. Anyway, it is probably a while off yet anyway - 18 months to two years. My personal reaction is that I think it is a bit soon, but I'll see what they come up with and make a decision when I have some information.

In conclusion, I would like to say that OGL is not bad for WotC directly - WotC do not have an OGL product to compete. And OGL market has proved to be healthy and quite probably stable.

However, indirectly, with WotC about to drop 4E, OGL market is quite likely to eat up 4E (retro-clones, anyone?), especially if 4E loyal fans decide to keep playing their game.

Which would be what WotC want, after all - they don't want long term ongoing support for a system they no longer sell.

Would OGL be good for WotC? Yes, definitely. Without competition everything goes stale. If I were to compare WotC support for their 3.x products and 4E supplements, I would say that 3.x era books, especially the settings, Tome of Battle and adventures, were of superior quality.

Whereas 4E products stagnated into generic and bland plug-ins, not enough oomph.

Regards,
Ruemere

I've already made the point elsewhere that competition is good for consumers, not companies. Companies exist to make money and generate profits, and competition (a) puts them in danger and (b) generally reduces their margins. That's not good for the company. I'm all for competitive markets, because then companies have to innovate to survive and that generally means better products and services. Just don't pretend it is what companies actually want.

@ Aubrey about the extra content pardon my french but how the hell would I know about any of that lol

I wouldn't, since this would be your first proper game in 4e. However, I do and so does our glorious DM. While I appreciate that you made the original suggestion for a game, you aren't the DM and it is unusual for a player to be deciding on what books are or aren't acceptable for play, especially without discussing it first. While I also appreciate that in 3e there was an element of power-creep with some non-PHB options, this isn't really the case for 4e as the power levels are relatively explicit and easy to benchmark. So you can create a perfectly viable character using the PHB only, but I fancied creating a summoner wizard which is something not in the basic book, hence my query.

I suspect I'll miss the opening of the scenario as I'm on holiday after today. Back next Monday.

After.

I've always like dragonborn too - they are a cool and flavourful race, especially in 4e.

As for me - call me mad - I think I'll go for a dwarven wizard.

Works for me. I'll get thinking.

Simbul as Mystra would be lovely and as a bonus wecould have a rivalry between Elminster and Azuth for her attention, but seriously I don't get why Talos had to go in favour of Gruumsh that is rather lame in comparison. Ilneval should have finally dealt with him and sent the orcs on a rampage.

I think Azuth is dead in 4e.

I am sure there are many more business savvy people here, but I think there is a factor that people miss.

Playing RPGs is at its core a creative pastime. The people who are attracted to it are people who are or want to be creative, who value innovation, who follow what is done, who discuss and try to improve theory and implementation of said theory. Most of the RPG-related threads in this forum are my Exhibit A. There are countless threads about how to roleplay, what kind of new rules would be better, and so on.

Some people are in it to be players, to be entertained. Nothing wrong with that... but they are not the people who are going to invest heavily into a game. They will buy the basic rules, and often object to people using more than that. The people who buy and invest are, as above, the creative ones. In general, of course.

Creative people do not like to be told "you play this way or no way", or "what you used to play was boring, play this instead", or anything else the 4th edition launch stated. They want to tinker with things, they consider themselves the best judge of what is fun to them, and they want as free a system as they can get. Part of that, and I seriously doubt I am mistaken, is to someday get published in one form or another. It was like that pre-OGL, which included the heyday of RPG publishing.

THAT is why the OGL mattered. You can use it to publish things yourself, and have some sort of chance to get attention for it. THAT was why having a chance to get published in Dragon and Dungeon magazine mattered. Both of these were wiped by WotC. From being a participant in the RPG scene, even if you never did submit anything or publish anything, you were expected to be a spectator.

Now, this is not a new problem. Gary Gygax himself wrote in Dragon editorials that you should only ever use TSR adventures. There was a reason TSR was said to be an acronym for They Sue Regularly. Even so, the culture and the expectations of that culture were different, and the simple lack of official material back then made homebrew a vital part of gaming despite this attitude....

I don't think this a very convincing argument. Nothing about the post-OGL stance of WotC seems to be about "Do it this way", it seems more "Don't steal our IP", which is reasonable given it is the approach of every other RPG company.

And nothing in the post-OGL world prevents either (a) ceative house-ruling or (b) creative campaign world(s) design. It prevents you from publishing it without the consent of WotC. Again, the same situation as with every other publisher.

I'm a little bit unhappy with the PHB-only rule. I appreciate that Raventhorn doesn't have anything else but I do, and the classes are reasonably well-balanced across all the supplements - plus if you want to be a controller in the PHB, you are looking at being a wizard only, whereas I quite fancied being a Protector Druid or maybe using some of the non-PHB wizad powers. What I choose shouldn't really impact on another player provided the roles are reasonably covered off - he only really has his own character to worry about.

Point by point. I agree with you on the setting not being OGL. The setting should be protected by IP as it is the core business. However it is only viable as a core business if it is used. Which is why the rule set needs to be OGL. Otherwise you are running a business selling the setting, but screening customers before they come through the door.

You want more people in the shop, not less.

Which is where the OGL helped WoTC by expanding the market, rather than shrinking it. All the talk of consolidation at WoTC makes me think they don't get this. You need to bring in new players, not just maximize the profits from the ones currently involved in the hobby.

It isn't about killing competition. It is about making money. A rising tide lifts all ships, particularly in entertainment. We all can spend our entertainment budget in any number of ways. Paizo isn't the real competition. They should be more afraid of Netflix, Blizzard and Bethesda Softworks (It is no coincidence our group has been playing less since Skyrim was released...)

If the entry cost for the hobby are to high, you will not grow the market. Most people I know who play got in through playing OGL games for free, then began to invest money when they became invested emotionally in the game.

But if you can't get new players, and more importantly new GM's, people don't play. And if people don't play, you don't sell product.

Again, it isn't a zero sum game within the industry, it is a competition for the entertainment dollar/time of potential customers. Making access to your system more difficult isn't good business.

Yes, agree that it would be nice if the market was growing, then the competitive threat from other systems is less. And you are right that Paizo is not the only competiton (though saying they are not competition is clearly wrong) - computer games and other forms of entertainment also absorb people's time.

The OGL has nothing to do with the solution to this, though. The OGL only matters if you are already standing in your FLGS. It doesn't help increase the size of the market, it steals market share from other games. No one who wants to play a computer game will say, "Hey, wait, those WotC have go an OGL, I'll not bother with Skyrim and play this 3PP scenarion instead". Especially when the quality of most 3PP stuff is relatively poor.

RPGs are a declining market, probably dying. The only outfit I see genuinely trying to innovate to deal with the threat from other media of WotC, frankly, with the online applications and automated errata they have produced. I'm not sure they have grasped the necessity of supporting their products with decent adventures on an ongoing basis (also key, and where Paizo wins hands-down right now). But other than that the RPG market probably is a zero-sum game - the market isn't growing much if at all, and is much reduced from its heyday. Giving your system away to rivals also doesn't make much business sense either, which is why they have stopped doing it.

I mean, the OGL has probably, on balance, been beneficial to customers - I'm not really denying that. Choice is always a good thing, even if I personally probably woudn't bother to buy the vast majority of the stuff. But I just don't buy this argument that the OGL has been good for WotC. It maybe assisted them a bit in the 3e era when they had the misguided notion that producing adventures was bad business. But that was a fundamentally poor strategy anyway.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

[...]

The OGL is bad for WotC - it was clearly good for its competitors in that it helped them, that was the problem.
[...]

This particular generalization is false.

Er, no, it isn't - it allowed Paizo to set itself up as the "true inheritor" of D&D, and to continue to support 3e after WotC wanted to move on to to 4e. That's had a big impact on WotC.

At this moment, OGL is not affecting WotC directly - they disengaged from manufacturing under this particular license. Their products are not generally compatible with OGL games, and the customers at this stage are unlikely to stampede in either direction.

Define directly. It has fostered competition in WotC home patch - playing D&D. It's not even a rival system - it's their system, which they no longer control. Just because they don't produce OGL compatible stuff doesn't change that - in fact, that's the heart of the matter.

A great-weapon fighter is also a decent choice.

Are we able to use additional powers from other sources which are on the CB?

Since we lack a controller I'll play the wizard.

I wouldn't mind a stab, Rosey, if you have room. Unless you are starting very soon, as I'm on holiday for a week starting Sunday - don't want to hold things up.

OK, so....

How is Paizo successful if the OGL is bad for companies again?

I know that they HAVE to use it, but they are more open than they need to be. Obviously using the OGL (or a similar model) is not a losing business practice.

Neither is not using it.

A lack of an OGL didn't cause 5E to come about so soon. WotC made other mistakes - like dragging their feet on the GSL and the first release being so draconian that people who had put their businesses on hold waiting on it were ruined.

The OGL is bad for WotC - it was clearly good for its competitors in that it helped them, that was the problem.

Re Paizo's own situaton, they haven't tried to change edition yet. Plus they have a different model - they effectively tweaked and existing system and then make most of their money selling stuff about a (very much non-OGL) game world. WotC's problem was (and still is) they didn't support their system properly with enough high quality adventures.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

Elton wrote:

That's why we need an OGL for 5th Edition, Memorax. We need it so that we won't have to convince Wizards of the Coast that our Work is the work they want to publish. We can publish it ourselves.

My experience of the OGL market has not been positive. WotC's experience of the OGL wasn't positive either, as it fostered competition for them. There may be some licencing deal for some 3PP players but in the end WotC want to protect their IP, market and profits. In the end, I don't think the OGL really did that for them - if it did, why did they change it? They are a profit maximising company in a declining industry - helping other talent will not be a priority for them, especially if it diultes their own brand and bites them on the arse.

So you think Competition is evil for Wizards of the Coast? Apparently it's not. It's making them innovate the rules again. If it was bad for Wizards of the Coast, they would have passed into the dark by now. A company's purpose is to make money right? Competition helps the company make money by giving them incentive to innovate.

Competition is good, Aubrey. Look at what is happening with the new 5e announcement? They have to innovate to keep up with their competition. In my personal opinion, cooperation is a lot better for Wizards of the Coast. But Competition with Paizo is good for Wizards of the Coast because it's making them look at their whole business model.

5e is good for the market, just as Paizo is good for the market. IF you are having a bad experience with the OGL, though, perhaps you should look at what would have happened if there was no OGL. No Stargate RPG, no Pathfinder, no Ptolus setting book, no Mutants and Masterminds. I see positive things with the OGL. So it's all a matter of perspective.

There are four freedoms of Culture. Since the D&D rules is part of our culture, it falls under these four freedoms:

1. The freedom to view, hear, read, or otherwise attend to the...

A few comments:

Golarion is not OGL, only Pathfinder is OGL. You will not be allowed to release Golarion material on your own and Paizo will not be willing to allow random strangers to create stuff that infringes their own IP, or to incoporate that into their IP. So your City of Psionics will have to be non-Golarion to comply with the OGL and Paizo's own version of it.

Second, you don't understand how competion or innovation works at the company level, nor have you noticed that there is a difference between what is good for consumersand what is good for companies. Competition between companies is an extension of the human urge to gather resources to survive and procreate. It is a fight which continues until the participants are destroyed. This impacts upon profits, and generally the more competion the lower the profits. So companies then have a choice - reduce their costs and continue to compete, or give up. Then there is the issue of how big the market is. Right now, the TTRPG market ain't big - it was much larger in the 1980s, but has declined significantly since then. A smaller market simply supports fewer competitors.

D&D and its competitors are now operating in a much smaller market than their heydey. This, frankly, has impacted significantly on available choice, much more so that anything else including the OGL. There is now much less choice in the brave new world of the OGL than there was in the 1980s, with really only a few systems out there. D&D/d20-based systems are now dominant, much more so than before when you had RQ, Traveller, and so on. They still exist, but barely. The declining market has been much more powerful a factor.

So in a declining market, competition can be bad for companies (though still not necessarily for the consumer) as you are looking at declining profits, which also means decling levels of innovation. It is possible to argue that the OGL has even stifled competion, since it allowed companies to produce (a lot of it dross) products without having the design their own system. On the one hand, it lowered barriers to enrty in the market, increasing output. In others, it probably reduced genuine innovation in RPG design by pushing everyone up the OGL route. What's so special about 3.5e to make it the ultimate RPG? Nothing much. It's really the Windows of RPGs - a dominant product that isn't really all that good and has lots of problems, but has nevertheless succeeded at smothering a lot of the competition by providing the default operating system. But that doesn't make it good, it just makes it popular with publishers and conservative customers who dislike change.

Now, I agree that in general the increased competition is probably a good thing overall for the market. However, this is a declining market. It is perfectly understandable if WotC is not keen to foster competition by giving them free rein over its IP. Paizo was nurtured in WotC's bosom and that has now bitten them - they are therefore highly unlikely to want to repeat the experience. I also agree that the increased competition is probably stimulating WotC to better things than they necessarily might have done without it - I think they got complacent and flabby, and that they are looking much harder at what they are doing.

But WotC is about profits (and indeed so is Paizo). They are not about fostering talent in other companies, they are about killing their competition like every other business. The OGL wasn't even altruistic, it was about saving money and outsourcing support - and it didn't work.

I had considered that WotC might give specific licenses to other companies to put out content, but the more I think about it, I'm not convinced that is a good idea.

Here is why, if at some point in the future WotC decides not to continue to allow that other company to produce that material, then WotC is going to be demonized as "stealing the material back". I mean just look at what has happened to Dragon and Dungeon. They licensed Paizo to put out the material, they even extended the license so that Paizo could finish their last adventure path in Dungeon, and what did WotC get for their efforts from the fan-base? "WotC ripped the magazines away from Paizo!"

It doesn't matter how inaccurate that interpretation is, it is how it felt to many and thus it was "true" in their mind. Frankly, if I was WotC I would be seriously hesitant to put the company in that situation again.

I don't really agree. When you see all the sound and fury about 4e, hardly anyone mentions the magazines - I don't think many people who make a big deal of it were even around on Paizo at the time. I was, and I was annoyed about it, but it didn't stop me picking up 4e. And since WotC didn't treat Paizo badly, and are demonised anyway, I don't think it is likely to change entrenched mindsets anyway - WotC are already considered the spawn of the Horn-ed One by those who are inclined to feel that way.

Thanks for the update.

ciretose wrote:

WoTC's genius in 2000 when they created the OGL was what made them "The World's Most Popular Role Playing Game."

Who is left from those times? Monte? And only because he was hired to come back.

Take a look at the known members of the 5th Edition design team:

Mike Mearls: Iron Heros
Monte Cook: Arcana Evolved, Ptolus
Bruce Cordell: Hyperconscious
Jeremy Crawford: Blue Rose
Rodney Tompson: Star Wars Saga (published by WotC, but same Idea)

I think whoever recruited that team had the same idea as you.

At least two of them (Cook and Cordell) made their names pre-3e so suggesting they are there solely because of their OGL credentials is probably misleading. Jeremy Crawford and Blue Rose I've never heard of, so only Mearls really seems to be a well-known product of the OGL.

That's why we need an OGL for 5th Edition, Memorax. We need it so that we won't have to convince Wizards of the Coast that our Work is the work they want to publish. We can publish it ourselves.

My experience of the OGL market has not been positive. WotC's experience of the OGL wasn't positive either, as it fostered competition for them. There may be some licencing deal for some 3PP players but in the end WotC want to protect their IP, market and profits. In the end, I don't think the OGL really did that for them - if it did, why did they change it? They are a profit maximising company in a declining industry - helping other talent will not be a priority for them, especially if it diultes their own brand and bites them on the arse.

How's that Fort save bonus coming along?

Just to let you know, I will be on holiday for a week from Sunday. I don't expect to have internet access.

Just to let you know, I will be on holiday for a week from Sunday. I don't expect to have internet access.

Just to let you know, I will be on holiday for a week from Sunday. I don't expect to have internet access.

Scott Betts wrote:

Again, you don't know that it's a market failure. You think it is, and you've got some circumstantial evidence that it might be true, but you don't have sales figures and you don't have an idea of what WotC's goals were.

Make this pedantic argument all you like Scott. We all know that you cannot concede a point even one that is shining like a supernova in the heavens above. Doesn't matter, we all know what a market failure is, and 4e qualifies.

Clearly you don't, since market failure is an economic term about the efficiency of supply and demand, not about how well a certain product is selling. I wouldn't bother to mention it but, you know, you're big on seeming all-knowing and I didn't want you to labour in ignorance.

As for all of us knowing it, other than several people just saying it I haven't seen any numbers to back it up. I also know those numbers are not in the public domain, so anyone saying it either has insider knowledge (unlikely) or is guessing. I think one person who runs an RPG store has made a comment along those lines, but that's one store. Like I say, you clearly have an inside track on this or just worked it out from first principles, but could you share your sources?

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

The hysteria on this comes straight from people with no stake in the company at all.

Hysteria. You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Brand Strategy A: A rising tide lifts all ships, we are keeping our system as open as possible to bring as many players into gaming as possible, because we will make our money by putting out quality modules that people will enjoy playing, but will have to replace once used. This will give us a continual profit stream as long as we can keep people playing and bring new people in.

Brand Strategy B: If we control and consolidate the gaming market, as the dominant brand more gaming dollars will come to us.

Which strategy is in my best interests, as a consumer?

So which system should I support. Which system is better for the industry as a whole? Frankly, which is the more sustainable model.

I'm not being hysterical, I'm being logical.

If Paizo changes, I'll abandon them as well. Don't support the label, support the strategy behind it.

Nothing I've read has changed my perception that WoTC is more focused on market takeover rather than market growth. If anything, the language they are using reinforces it.

What do you do as a consumer? You buy the game you like. I don't give a damn about WotC's strategy, or Paizo's. I'm interested in the quality of their products, not trying to second-guess their marketing strategy or management and making a moral judgement from that. Every company wants to be a monopoly - it is what they do. They try to control their market as much as they can, to make as much money as they can. It is not always good for consumers but generally speaking you are castigating companies for doing what they are designed to do - generate profits and grow those profits. RPGs are not a growth market so what do you do? You try to dominate the niche. This is basic business - the BCG matrix cover this.

And I use the term hysteria because you used hyperbolic language about WotC trying to "kill" Paizo. WotC ended their licence. If Paizo died that was down to Paizo. Paizo didn't. So what are we arguing about, four years on?

When you try to kill someone and fail to do so, that doesn't change the fact your attempt was to kill them.

Of course, if you didn't try to kill them then you didn't. Paizo has always sold games through its online shop, so WotC were not their only source of revenue (and they would be idiots if they were reliant on a single licence with a sunset clause in it - which clearly they are not). It was doing that when the licence (note - not OGL) was withdrawn by WotC. The licence was explicit that it could be withdrawn, and Paizo happily signed up to it. Then WotC changed strategy. That's not "attempting to kill", that's just business. It was up to Paizo to deal with it, as an independent company. This stuff happens all the time. And, it bears repeating: WotC gave them more grace in the licence withdrawal than they were entitled. And Paizo wasn't even a threat then - they were a licencee that produced a couple of mags, and sold some D&D stuff online on the side. So this great "homicidal" venture, like much other stuff with you, is in your mind. I was here at the time, I remember what happened.

When it happened, the general consensus was that WoTC's moves would destroy Paizo, as Paizo was built to support 3.5. The fact that Paizo was able to create a market in the vacuum of the one WoTC was trying to remove wasn't part of the WoTC plan.

No probably not. But the consensus among the uninformed on the internet normally doesn't add up to much, as subsequent events proved.

"We have invested multiple 7 figures in the development of 4e so can you tell me why we would want publishers to support a system that we have moved away from?

This is not spite, malice or some evil scorched earth policy. Yes, we want people to make 4e books and stop making 3.x. Does that surprise you?"

Scott Rouse, Former WoTC Brand Manager

Er, no, that seems fairly reasonably, actually.

To add context to his quote, the GSL requires you to

- Drop any publication of OGL material if you want to publish for 4E. In other words, for all the talk of WoTC and not taking sides, you have to choose to take WoTC if you want to publish for 4E.

- Each setting and production has to be paid for separately and as to be provided to WoTC for approval prior to publication. So put all the work in and "maybe" you will get approval, for a fee...and if you are getting to big, they can just say no, leaving you in the lurch and, due to the first part, unable to go back to your prior OGL publications.

The effort was to kill OGL games, including 3.5.

That was the plan. The fact it didn't work isn't something to praise WoTC for.

The idea was to change edition and attempt the maintain dominance in the market. Oh, and to produce a better game. That is just business. It's just business to Paizo too, I might add. The hysteria on this comes straight from people with no stake in the company at all.

I'm thinking they may have realised that a vibrant D&D needs support with campaign settings and adventures. Hoping, anyway. I'm also wondering if they are looking to build a relatively simple platform and support and revise it online, rather than have a series of big discontinuities with edition changes. After all, the errata are pretty seamless with the DDI, and is one of tis strengths.