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I didn't have a problem with most of 2E until the Skills & Powers book came out and my DM decided to use it. Turning six stats into twelve wasn't my idea of improvement.
Although I did like the Racial Variants and the Traits and Disadvantages sections.
Loved the 2.5 edition stuff personally, but it was very powergamey that's for sure. Had a hell of a fighter/mage build. If I recall access to 3 schools of magic (and universal), improved hp for both fighter and mage, no armor restriction, (but used a shield), WITH persistent spell effect shield. I think it was legal, rocked like a -4 AC at level one hehe...my buddy borrowed the build when he moved to Kentucky and the group told him not to come back ;p
Problem with split stats was that they almost always split one way. Split towards atk/dmg bonus, split towards HP, split towards AC, etc. Really ramped up the power.
Having said that, it's the system I played and ran the most lotta fond memories there. My cousin even managed to merge every class into a unified point system, we called it "DnD Mat edition". Wish I could find it, was pretty cool actually...
The question is, will it be the OGL that's at issue with 5E, or will they have to come up with another license? (Hopefully nothing like the GSL.)
The problem with the GSL is that it basically gave 3rd party publishers no incentive to use it -- it protected the interests of WotC too well, in contrast to the OGL which it can be argued permitted too much. It is too bad that nobody at WotC during development of the GSL was able to raise that issue and keep their jobs. But replacing the GSL was a two-pronged issue: Given that the OGL already existed and that WotC wanted to offer a more restrictive alternative, they would have needed to offer something to outside developers to make that license worth using. Most of the outsiders quickly concluded that the GSL did not offer sufficient benefit for its costs and risks.
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Removed a very weird derail. If you want to talk about adultery in Canada or whatever the heck that was, please take it to the appropriate forum.Thank you. Those posts were a bit of an annoyance last night.
If I had to live in Canuckistan I'd probably adulterate until the meese (that is the plural of moose right?) came home ;p
I keed, I keed ~
Back on the advertising thing: Rather than quote lengthy responses to me and lose the gist of both arguments in a wall of text, I'm just going to repeat what I have been trying to say earlier:
I think WotC's early 4e marketing displayed some errors of judgment and contributed to a split fanbase. In my opinion, that people are arguing so vehemently on both sides of this issue even now speaks to that and are the best example of this split fanbase I could ask for.
This was the important part of my point that has been edited away to make room for arguing:
I hope WotC takes a different route when marketing 5e.
I think our point is that the marketing was actually fine, by and large. They got their product out there, showed people how it worked before it came out, and the "badmouthing" of previous editions that many people are convinced took place didn't actually happen. We assert, rather, that the marketing (and many other things) were sort of a scapegoat for players who had decided to "hop off" at 3.5 or Pathfinder due to, by and large, perceived problems with 4e as a system (which, themselves, turned out to be largely false and ran into the same problem of "You can't do X in 4e!" "Sure you can, it's on page X," but that's an entirely different discussion).
I think that there are real reasons people chose to avoid 4e, and fake reasons people chose to avoid 4e. I think that pre-release marketing blunders falls into the "fake reasons" category.
The Nezumi does a face palm. George. "What?"
"Your player is a gamist, right?"
"Yes."
"Thought so,"
He said with a sneer.
The content of your post is dumb (I'll get to that in a second) but worse, it's terribly elitist. I can practically hear you looking down your nose in cultured disgust at the thought of a gamist player.
Also, you have utterly missed the point of backgrounds and themes. What did you think the text write-ups for backgrounds and themes were? Marshmallows? They're inspiration to help you develop your character's backstory. They can no more make a backstory for you in 4e than they can in Pathfinder - in fact, 4e backgrounds are very similar to Pathfinder's character creation traits! The purpose of backgrounds and themes is to provide nice little mechanical thingymabobs to help your character feel, mechanically, like he really did have those background experiences you described to your companions when you introduced yourself. They are inspiration, which is the best that any game system can do for you short of writing out complete backstories for you to pick-and-choose from (and which, I'm sure, you'd revolt at the idea of).
I think our point is that the marketing was actually fine, by and large. They got their product out there, showed people how it worked before it came out, and the "badmouthing" of previous editions that many people are convinced took place didn't actually happen. We assert, rather, that the marketing (and many other things) were sort of a scapegoat for players who had decided to "hop off" at 3.5 or Pathfinder due to, by and large, perceived problems with 4e as a system (which, themselves, turned out to be largely false and ran into the same problem of "You can't do X in 4e!" "Sure you can, it's on page X," but that's an entirely different discussion).
I think that there are real reasons people chose to avoid 4e, and fake reasons people chose to avoid 4e. I think that pre-release marketing blunders falls into the "fake reasons" category.
Scott, I don't mean to quibble with you (SPOILER ALERT: I totally mean to quibble with you), but I think you're talking about advertising vs. marketing. Everything you've said above is about advertising. Marketing is the difference between G.I.Joe/Transformers movie budget and the D&D movie budget. (Be warned, I'm not in PR so my definitions could be way off) I mean seriously Mazes and Monsters was a piece of anti-gamer propaganda and that had a bigger name star...
My point: I think Paizo is gaining so much ground so quickly because it respects its audience in way that hasbro won't allow WotC to; hope that made sense.
We assert, rather, that the marketing (and many other things) were sort of a scapegoat for players who had decided to "hop off" at 3.5 or Pathfinder due to, by and large, perceived problems with 4e as a system (which, themselves, turned out to be largely false and ran into the same problem of "You can't do X in 4e!" "Sure you can, it's on page X," but that's an entirely different discussion).
Fascinating assertion. Likely untrue.
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Well, I don't know if it will be exactly the same licence as for 3.5e, but it seems strongly that we won't have a repeat of 4th Edition.
But what benefit would an OGL-style 5e-OGL bring them?
The last time they did a robust OGL it seemed to help everyone except Wizards--and look at the monster that Pathfinder has become, it's an OGL creation that's taken over the market and has successfully lobbied 3.5e against 4e sales.
If there were no OGL, and no Pathfinder, I would bet that 4e would have had more sales as there would have been no alternative to the "dead" 3.5e just as there was no support for 1e or 2e once TSR moved on. And, now that people have gotten creative, they're using 3.5e OGL to re-create the 1e and 2e experience--all of which is revenue that's build upon Wizards' core creation (3.5e) but without them getting any significant direct benefit from the "competition" it's created.
Assume 5e has a 3.5e-style OGL and Pathfinder uses that as the core of PF 2e, and again undercuts Hasbro's profits by creating a functional alternative (that already has a large fan base to pull from)--how much "damage" would that do to a fledgling 5e product line and profit margin?
--I'm not seeing the benefit for Wizards, or why another "open" OGL would help them. Nor why they'd be very interested in repeating the mistake of opening the door for Pathfinder and the other 3P OGL-compatible games to once again take their lunch away from them after investing million in development of 5e...
In short, I'd be very surprised to see a "return" to the OGL we're currently enjoying via Pathfinder as a component of 5e.
We assert, rather, that the marketing (and many other things) were sort of a scapegoat for players who had decided to "hop off" at 3.5 or Pathfinder due to, by and large, perceived problems with 4e as a system (which, themselves, turned out to be largely false and ran into the same problem of "You can't do X in 4e!" "Sure you can, it's on page X," but that's an entirely different discussion).Fascinating assertion. Likely untrue.
The alternative is worse - that people actually abandoned 4e because of internet rumormongering gone wild, despite the many times they were told and shown otherwise. That makes a pretty good chunk of the Pathfinder player base out to be petty, vindictive, and willfully ignorant, rather than my original argument's assertion that they're simply human and prone to needing justification.
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The alternative is worse - that people actually abandoned 4e because of internet rumormongering gone wild, despite the many times they were told and shown otherwise. That makes a pretty good chunk of the Pathfinder player base out to be petty, vindictive, and willfully ignorant, rather than my original argument's assertion that they're simply human and prone to needing justification.We assert, rather, that the marketing (and many other things) were sort of a scapegoat for players who had decided to "hop off" at 3.5 or Pathfinder due to, by and large, perceived problems with 4e as a system (which, themselves, turned out to be largely false and ran into the same problem of "You can't do X in 4e!" "Sure you can, it's on page X," but that's an entirely different discussion).Fascinating assertion. Likely untrue.
Anecdotal evidence, limited to my experience in my local game groups and local shops--many people did react in just that way. Many "die-hards" (anecdotally, no way to poll them all) rejected 4e based on "what they read" without ever trying the actual game. I was in the store when one customer looked at the 4e selections and said something along the lines of "I don't even know why that crap is in here, everyone online hates it."
Again, that's probably not accurate of everyone, but I think at least some percentage of players rejected 4e without ever trying it.
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We assert, rather, that the marketing (and many other things) were sort of a scapegoat for players who had decided to "hop off" at 3.5 or Pathfinder due to, by and large, perceived problems with 4e as a system (which, themselves, turned out to be largely false and ran into the same problem of "You can't do X in 4e!" "Sure you can, it's on page X," but that's an entirely different discussion).Fascinating assertion. Likely untrue.
Revisionist history is revisionist...
In 2007 WoTC announced they were going to cease to support 3.5 and instead release a new version. As time passed it became clear that they wanted out of the OGL, and wanted to move to a more profitable online subscriber model. In 2008 4E was released and 3.5 ceased to be supported, with much of the previously available support removed.
Unfortunately for WoTC and fortunately for the gaming community, the OGL allowed people to continue playing 3.5 and creating variants to continue to play, the most popular of which is Pathfinder.
Despite having "the" brand, the logistical support, marketing, business connections, and financed by a huge company, 4E fell behind in sales to what is basically a 12 year old game modified less than when it transitioned from 3.0 to 3.5 run by a company they got rid of and expected to die.
The game got every advantage in the market, and still lost. Think about it. Paizo was Dragon Magazine left for dead on a shoestring budget trying to create an entire campaign setting from scratch because WoTC owned all of their intellectual property and basically pulled the rug out from under them being able to produce material for them by doing an end around on the OGL.
WoTC tried to create a monopoly by killing the OGL. And they failed.
So yes, there was some resentment toward their marketing. It is was very fair resentment.
I am impressed at your consistency as a WoTC apologist Scott, but you can't pretend it wasn't an attempt to crush the OGL and consolidate, and you can't pretend that isn't something worth being resentful about.
Not to mention the fact that until Monte came back, who at WoTC had any really connection to the past?
Well, to clarify what I want out of 5e to Scott Betts:
4e Backgrounds and themes are a big, big joke. I bet if DMs knew about Paul Jaquays' Central Casting books they'd probably throw everything 4e offered for backgrounds and themes out of the window and use this. Antiquated, yes! But any DM should be inventive enough to really generate a character's background using this book and ingenuity (1st Edition is cool, Second Edition of the book is watered down.)
Basically what we did with the Nezumi character he has can be summed up in this conversation:
4e Character: "Hello, happy world! Hello, happy tree, hello happy bunny, hello happy squirrel!"
Pathfinder Character (who looks like a rat): "Hello, clueless one."
4e Character: "Oh hi! Can we be friends?"
Pathfinder Nezumi character: "Maybe. Tell me about yourself."
4e Character: "Well, my name's George. I'm a house Deneith Mercenary and I fought in the Last War."
Pathfinder Nezumi Character. "Well, you're certainly acting pretty one dimensional, what was your military experience?"
George Deneith (4e): "I don't know. I'm just a veteran of the Last War. But I have Intimidate as an associated skill!"
The Nezumi does a face palm. George. "What?"
"Your player is a gamist, right?"
"Yes."
"Thought so. My player took the trouble generating my background, but my exploits pale in comparison to my father's."
"Oh? What happened?"
"First of all, we were kicked out of Nezumi lands for being different. My father found work as a fisherman and joined the Home Guard so we can have some money. At first, he saw little action, ran away from some, and joined up to prove himself.
"There was a major war with a neighboring kingdom and his actions got him promoted to corporal. There was many battles, and he was finally decorated for his bravery and became an officer. He was so good that he signed on for another five years and was assigned to special forces -- in the Ranger division. Another war broke out with Drow and he kills...
I am very confused. Why can't the 4th edition character have as a detailed background as your Pathfinder character? If you are saying that the 4ed character just picks a background/theme and does nothing more with it, that is a issue with the player, not the 4th edition system.
Again, that's probably not accurate of everyone, but I think at least some percentage of players rejected 4e without ever trying it.
As much as I prefer 3.x and I do (just like anchovy pizza), I'd be willing to bet that a majority of the fanatics did (or didn't) just that; speaking for myself, I own the 4E core books, but never really invested myself in the system emotionally.
(Hopefully, if I live a virtuous life, I'll go to Golarion when I die.)
Thing is though, I never felt a need to buy all the 4E supplements. 3E allowed me to do everything I wanted to do with an RPG system.
YMMV
Revisionist history is revisionist...
ciretose, you lost the right to call anything "revisionist history" about six pages back.
So yes, there was some resentment toward their marketing. It is was very fair resentment.
I am impressed at your consistency as a WoTC apologist Scott, but you can't pretend it wasn't an attempt to crush the OGL and consolidate, and you can't pretend that isn't something worth being resentful about.
I'm not pretending anything. The OGL was WotC's license. They put it out voluntarily to help grow the hobby and support D&D. They never tried to kill it. In fact, it cannot be killed. That's how they created the license. They made it so that it could never be revoked. They did choose to use a different license going forward, and really, can you blame them? The old one that they voluntarily put out ended up creating the most significant direct competitor they'd ever faced. They'd have been stupid to put themselves in that situation twice. You're making up ulterior motives and underhanded plays that didn't exist.
You're done labeling anything revisionist, except, perhaps, your own version of what happened.
The alternative is worse - that people actually abandoned 4e because of internet rumormongering gone wild, despite the many times they were told and shown otherwise. That makes a pretty good chunk of the Pathfinder player base out to be petty, vindictive, and willfully ignorant, rather than my original argument's assertion that they're simply human and prone to needing justification.We assert, rather, that the marketing (and many other things) were sort of a scapegoat for players who had decided to "hop off" at 3.5 or Pathfinder due to, by and large, perceived problems with 4e as a system (which, themselves, turned out to be largely false and ran into the same problem of "You can't do X in 4e!" "Sure you can, it's on page X," but that's an entirely different discussion).Fascinating assertion. Likely untrue.
I also doubt that that's the only alternative. Likely untrue as well.
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Revisionist history is revisionist...ciretose, you lost the right to call anything "revisionist history" about six pages back.
So yes, there was some resentment toward their marketing. It is was very fair resentment.I am impressed at your consistency as a WoTC apologist Scott, but you can't pretend it wasn't an attempt to crush the OGL and consolidate, and you can't pretend that isn't something worth being resentful about.I'm not pretending anything. The OGL was WotC's license. They put it out voluntarily to help grow the hobby and support D&D. They never tried to kill it. In fact, it cannot be killed. That's how they created the license. They made it so that it could never be revoked. They did choose to use a different license going forward, and really, can you blame them? The old one that they voluntarily put out ended up creating the most significant direct competitor they'd ever faced. They'd have been stupid to put themselves in that situation twice. You're making up ulterior motives and underhanded plays that didn't exist.
You're done labeling anything revisionist, except, perhaps, your own version of what happened.
I note you didn't actually refute any of the points in either this or the previous posts.
What part was untrue?
That 1e through 2e was a largely coexisting transition over 26 years similar to the transition from 3.0 to 3.5.
That 3.0 came out in 2000 and was discontinued 8 years later, with all support discontinued and a far more restrictive license that hurt the 3PP industry.
That 4E has been less popular the last two quarters despite having "The" brand, the financing, the logistical backing, marketing connections, etc...
What situation did they put themselves in, exactly? They were kings of the market, highly profitable by all accounts. They at one point owned the company that is now outselling them.
Let me say that again, they owned the company that is now outselling them.
WoTC could have been as profitable and successful as Paizo now is in the market simply by not selling off Paizo. Everything Paizo did could have been done under the WoTC umbrella.
Instead they tried to monopolize the market, because that is Hasbro's go to move.
And they failed.
So now they are trying again, hoping the brand has value, since clearly the product couldn't win despite all the advantages it had on it's release.
So what part of that is inaccurate?
You're done labeling anything revisionist, except, perhaps, your own version of what happened.
My own version of what happened is always revisionist, that's why I'm always right :P
I also doubt that that's the only alternative. Likely untrue as well.The alternative is worse - that people actually abandoned 4e because of internet rumormongering gone wild, despite the many times they were told and shown otherwise. That makes a pretty good chunk of the Pathfinder player base out to be petty, vindictive, and willfully ignorant, rather than my original argument's assertion that they're simply human and prone to needing justification.We assert, rather, that the marketing (and many other things) were sort of a scapegoat for players who had decided to "hop off" at 3.5 or Pathfinder due to, by and large, perceived problems with 4e as a system (which, themselves, turned out to be largely false and ran into the same problem of "You can't do X in 4e!" "Sure you can, it's on page X," but that's an entirely different discussion).Fascinating assertion. Likely untrue.
I'm open to your alternatives.
4E has been less popular the last two quarters despite having "The" brand, the financing, the logistical backing, marketing connections, etc...
This has been my whole point all along: I don't think WotC has anything but the brand; all the rest is Hasbro.
I note you didn't actually refute any of the points in either this or the previous posts.
What part was untrue?
The part where you tried to claim that WotC tried to kill the OGL.
What situation did they put themselves in, exactly?
They created a license that explicitly allowed a direct competitor to emerge by republishing their rules, royalty-free, with minor tweaks, and pitch those rules to a customer base that WotC had established and which was only aware of Paizo through its prior license with WotC.
They were kings of the market, highly profitable by all accounts. They at one point owned the company that is now outselling them.
Let me say that again, they owned the company that is now outselling them.
WotC never owned Paizo. Paizo sort of spun off from WotC's editorial department back in the day, but was never owned by WotC. They only ever had a licensing agreement.
WoTC could have been as profitable and successful as Paizo now is in the market simply by not selling off Paizo.
WotC never sold off Paizo, because they never owned it.
This is why you don't get to make "revisionist history" jabs, ciretose. You don't have a strong enough grasp of what actually happened to be able to call others out on making things up.
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Well, I don't know if it will be exactly the same licence as for 3.5e, but it seems strongly that we won't have a repeat of 4th Edition.But what benefit would an OGL-style 5e-OGL bring them?
The last time they did a robust OGL it seemed to help everyone except Wizards--and look at the monster that Pathfinder has become, it's an OGL creation that's taken over the market and has successfully lobbied 3.5e against 4e sales.
Yes, that seems to most obvious interpretation of the situation. However, I am not sure this is actually the case. I am not making claim here, but there is another possible interpretation.
After all, Paizo didn't decide to create Pathfinder just because there was such a huge demand now that Wizards had left the 3.5e market, but because Paizo couldn't continue its business under 4th Edition. They had the option of continuing 3.5e material under the OGL as they did, or turn to creating 4th Edition material with the very severe restrictions of the GSL. I don't think creating Pathfinder was their first choice of dealing with the edition change. It wasn't that 3rd Edition being under the OGL that made them create Pathfinder, but 4th Edition [i]not[(i] being under the OGL.Also, as some people say, Paizo was providing a very important service for Wizards with their adventure modules. I don't use published adventures myself, but apparently they are a really important factor in keeping people playing the game as much as they do. Without OGL material, interest in 3rd Edition might have decreased much faster with Wizards being the only company producing new content. With 4th Edition, third party content wasn't anything near what it was and continues to be for 3.5e/Pathfinder, which might quite likely be one factor among others that had people not remain as exited about 4th Edition as they were on release.
Brand awareness is extremely important and OGL publications help keeping brand awreness high, which benefits the primary publishers as well. If people lose interest in the game, Wizards may actually have less customers for later splatbooks than they would otherwise have.
Again, I don't know of any numbers that show a direct correlation or causality between these things. But it is something that quite a number of people believe.
WoTC did not try to kill the OGL instead they sent in to the corner to die a slow death of starvation and hoped that nobody would notice. After all, since 4e was the ultimate RPG nobody would be interested in continuing to play 3e. In fact, let us yank all legal PDFs of previous editions so anybody new to the hobby will be completely clueless about what has come before. Of course, eBay is your friend. Although, if WOTC could have done it, they would have landfilled everything they could get their hands on.
I can almost see Hasbro executives pounding on the table saying, "The brand, the brand, we must leverage the brand!" OGL allowed freedom for rebellion. The brand is not what it once was, so far removed from the blood, sweat, and tears of E. Gary Gygax.
With 5e, now we will see our mistakes. We will create the one game to rule them all. All of these OGL rebels will be put in their place.
We shall see.
Yes, somebody up the food chain. Hasbro only cared about providing target numbers so from their perspective the brand is everything. It was up WOTC to implement Hasbro's "hands-off but you better make these numbers" vision.
It is just a sad state for the brand. On a positive note, the OGL has allowed the game to both live and thrive whether I play the king of retro-clones Pathfinder or one of its princes like Swords & Wizardry.
I think if they are trying that one game for everyone for the forseeable future thing, they need to get it open under the OGL. That way other companies help Wizards to get the people to play D&D. If they don't, then those other companies will still produce material but with the intention of getting people to not play D&D instead.
And as lots of people point out, apparently a vast majority of D&D player never buys any third party material with significant number of GMs only allowing WotC material. I think third party publications are in addition to what people buy from WotC, not something they buy instead of WotC books.
Some people play core only, they are not affected by OGL-Material. Others have huge library of stuff and they apparently have the money to buy more than all WotC-Material. The cases in which people actually think "I want to buy one RPG book this quartal and it will be either WotC or 3rd party" should be extremely rare. If they like a 3rd party book, they will buy that as well. If they don't like the WotC book, they won't buy it anyway, even if it means buying nothing that quartal. Having an active community of people hyping each other up about homebrewing and 3rd party publications should be a lot more valuable than those small losses you make in salees.
I agree with everything in your post, Jerry. All of this is a great dramatic story. Someone needs to research and write a comprehensible history of the game. I believe with the release of 5e that this story is coming to a interesting and exciting climax. I hope whatever happens it is a benefit to the RPG industry.
@Yora
You also make a great point. OGL needs to continue with 5e.
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1. I think if they are trying that one game for everyone for the forseeable future thing, they need to get it open under the OGL.
2. That way other companies help Wizards to get the people to play D&D.
3. If they don't, then those other companies will still produce material but with the intention of getting people to not play D&D instead.
4. And as lots of people point out, apparently a vast majority of D&D player never buys any third party material with significant number of GMs only allowing WotC material.
5. I think third party publications are in addition to what people buy from WotC, not something they buy instead of WotC books.
^Above Numbered and separated just for clarity of response:
1. I don't expect they'll repeat the OGL "mistake" and "give away the farm" for free again--which is why we got the GSL in place of the OGL for 4e.
2. I don't believe that other companies (except Paizo) have enough brand presence to bring people in--I think they may attract current players to come try their modules/supplements/etc., but they're not the "gateway" to RPGs (PF being the exception--with people starting their RPG experience in Pathfinder having never played anything else).
3. It will be hard for other companies to compete with WotC if there's no OGL allowing them to do so--they'll be stuck coming up with non-5e-compatible products.
Whereas under OGL, those companies are competing with WotC--Paizo being the primary example of how its products have taken market share from WotC/D&D's dominance (in the industry the D&D brand created).
4. Exactly, so if WotC makes it hard for there to even be 3P content, then it's more likely that more people will (be forced to) buy the official WotC 5e products instead of 3P alternatives.
5. Pathfinder would be the striking counterpoint--where many people are buying it instead of D&D/WotC books.
The brand will continue to wither under a GSL unless the 5e game is so great and wonderful that the OGL is purged from the collective mind of the masses.
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The brand will continue to wither under a GSL unless the 5e game is so great and wonderful that the OGL is purged from the collective mind of the masses.
I think that's their hope--that 5e will be the "great uniter" and everyone will leave their camps to flock to it.
It's a Catch22 for them:
If they do another OGL then their million-dollar-baby has instant competition from all the 3P products--what if something like Pathfinder 2e comes out as a 5e-OGL product and puts a massive dent in their market and keeps them from their $100M Brand Target? Doom for D&D's brand image and another huge boost to its competitors--which all 3P products are.
If they don't come out with a robust OGL then the fans may howl and complain and not move over to 5e--but, again, I think this is the "safer" move for them.
--They may lose the Grognards and Pathfinder players--but most of those two segments are already "lost" to D&D anyway, and not putting money in WotC's treasury as it is. So, if Hasbro writes them off but keeps them isolated with a very restricted GSL, then you can hope to block 3P success taking away your core sales while slowly winning back converts to D&D from Pathfinder and other 3P games stuck in the "old" OGL systems.
Of course, all of this relies on 5e being good enough to tempt people to play it in the first place, if it's not, then it won't matter which way they turn.
But, if I were CEO, then I'd take the path most likely to maximize myprofits--and that's with a restriced GSL to block competition and market cannibalization.
...but, as in everything, we'll have to see what unfolds...
1. I don't know what Wizards and Hasbro actually assume to be "the 3rd Edition OGL mistake". However, they do aknowledge a "4th Edition OGL Problem":
"And although of course no one can possibly speak with actual authority of the future on this topic, I can assure you that the OGL issues that plagued 4th Edition's release are lessons that did not go unheeded." - Bruce Cordell.
Since 4th Edition didn't have an OGL, I assume that that was the problem.
2. No, most certainly not. Third party companies won't attract people to D&D. But I believe that they do a great deal to keep existing players stay interested in the game and in seeking out information on upcomming publications, both by WotC and other companies.
I experienced that with Half-Life and Neverwinter Nights. Both games had a redicolusly long lifetime long after the technology was completely putdated, because there was a strong community of people providing each other with new content.
You don't have to just get the people to buy your books, you also have to keep them exited about the game. Because these people will get lots of new players to start the game, many years after its initial release, who would never have started playing in the first way. One new RPG comes out, so what? But you heard people talling about this one thing for over ten years and they are still exited about it? It must really be something great, so maybe it's still a good time to start with it.
From my own experience, I very rarely buy games or DVDs within a year of release. When I do buy them, it's usually because I kept hearing people praise them and the title didn't disappear from public memory. I got my brother Mass Effect this christmas, and only because I borrowed the game from a friend last summer. And that game is really old, but BioWare still got two more sales out of it. I even kept pestering the admin of a videogame forum to create a mass effect subforum, for which he set me up as the opperator, and along with two other people, we got a couple of new people to try the games, because they saw there's a new subforum that gets lots of posts.
The customers don't just have to buy once, they need to be constantly entertained, something that 3rd party publications can do very well.
3. As I said, Paizo is now competing directly with WotC because they were denied the opportunity to help promoting 4th Edition with their publications. Had 4th Edition full OGL access, I think they would just have followed.
4. No, that's the opposite of what I mean. People will not buy more WotC products if there are no alternatives. People will buy the same amount from WotC, but because of #2) there will actually be less people.
Third party publishers supporting 5th Edition will mean more sales for WotC.
5. People buy Pathfinder instead of 4th Edition, because Pathfinder is a very different game that isn't compatible with 4th Edition. They don't like 4th Edition, so they don't buy it. I think if WotC wpuld produce Pathfinder compatible material, the Pathfinder people would buy those as well.
The relationship between PF and 4E is a completely different one than betwenn WotC-3.5e and 3PP-3.5e.
My point it: 3rd Party Publications are not competition.
WOTC has painted themselves in a corner which also makes this edition change an exciting and compelling story.
Next chapter - D&D Experience Jan 26-29
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1. I don't know what Wizards and Hasbro actually assume to be "the 3rd Edition OGL mistake". However, they do aknowledge a "4th Edition OGL Problem":
The "OGL Mistake" is, essentially, Pathfinder.
If OGL didn't exist, and therefore Pathfinder couldn't exist, then think of all the revenue that is now being generated by Paizo that would, by default, channeled elsewhere--most likely, into D&D/4e as they would be the only "current" game.
There are always holdovers, but if there was no OGL support then those left behind aren't impacting future business. If there was no OGL, then those who loved 3.5e and wouldn't move into 4e would still be buying WotC 3.5e books where they could find them, and there'd be nothing else after that.
Either way, those "lapsed" gamers aren't costing WotC money directly.
However, as it is now, wvery time WotC looks at Pathfinder's quarterly earnings, they know that it was their OGL that allowed each one of those dollars to go to Paizo while simultaneously taking money from their own profits by allowing a previous edition to (very successfully) compete with their own newer product.
I don't see a fiscal benefit to repeating that mistake--it's the same reason why Microsoft doesn't release a Freeware version of Windows, or MS Office--it's not practical to open the door for your free product to compete with your own core product line, especially to the point where the free product (OGL) is having nearly as much (or more) success than your own product.
As I said: Pathfinder exists for two reasons:
#1. Made possible by the 3rd Edition OGL.
#2. Made neccessary because of a lack of a 4th Edition OGL.
If they had never introduced an OGL in the first place, Pathfinder would have been prevented. But once they did it, they made things worse for themselves by trying what they could to take it back.
Introducing open content could possibly be a bad idea. Taking it away is definitely an even worse idea.
Would getting back to an OGL help? It probably won't fix the issue of having a strong competitor in Paizo. But with the situation as it is now, getting a new OGL won't do any damage anymore.
Except if they then decide to take it away again, that would really be the most terrible descision of all.
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I'm open to your alternatives.I also doubt that that's the only alternative. Likely untrue as well.The alternative is worse - that people actually abandoned 4e because of internet rumormongering gone wild, despite the many times they were told and shown otherwise. That makes a pretty good chunk of the Pathfinder player base out to be petty, vindictive, and willfully ignorant, rather than my original argument's assertion that they're simply human and prone to needing justification.We assert, rather, that the marketing (and many other things) were sort of a scapegoat for players who had decided to "hop off" at 3.5 or Pathfinder due to, by and large, perceived problems with 4e as a system (which, themselves, turned out to be largely false and ran into the same problem of "You can't do X in 4e!" "Sure you can, it's on page X," but that's an entirely different discussion).Fascinating assertion. Likely untrue.
I don't know about other people but I know why I left 4E after a year of playing. I don't like the Encounter/Daily exploits, healing surges, and minions. It is that simple for me. It has been a few years since I played but I also seem to remember that there were no spellcraft checks, counterspells, and spell components in 4E - I loved that stuff. I also don't like the fix to grapple in 4E (called grab?). It seems that they just took away options instead of streamlining it. I like the way Pathfinder repaired it more.
The number 1 reason (perhaps related to the stuff above) is that I have more fun playing Pathfinder. That is all that matters to me. If you have more fun playing 4E then that should be all that matters to you. There is no need to reciprocate snarky attitudes (as many of your posts do - is that intentional?).
Cheers,
Asphere
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I note you didn't actually refute any of the points in either this or the previous posts.
What part was untrue?
The part where you tried to claim that WotC tried to kill the OGL.
What situation did they put themselves in, exactly?They created a license that explicitly allowed a direct competitor to emerge by republishing their rules, royalty-free, with minor tweaks, and pitch those rules to a customer base that WotC had established and which was only aware of Paizo through its prior license with WotC.
They were kings of the market, highly profitable by all accounts. They at one point owned the company that is now outselling them.
Let me say that again, they owned the company that is now outselling them.
WotC never owned Paizo. Paizo sort of spun off from WotC's editorial department back in the day, but was never owned by WotC. They only ever had a licensing agreement.
WoTC could have been as profitable and successful as Paizo now is in the market simply by not selling off Paizo.WotC never sold off Paizo, because they never owned it.
This is why you don't get to make "revisionist history" jabs, ciretose. You don't have a strong enough grasp of what actually happened to be able to call others out on making things up.
I would argue that you don't understand the business model well enough to see why you backed the wrong horse.
Except in the case of exceptional GMs, a game system is only as good as the setting and modules you play with it.
WoTC owned "Dungeon" and "Dragon" Magazines, which were purchased by Paizo. The core of Paizo's staff, James and Erik, were the editors of each magazine. The magazines produced what should have been the cash cows of the Dungeons and Dragon empire, the primary non-renewable resource of the gaming world. Adventures and modules.
Instead they sold that piece off.
So that meant all they had to sell were products that were reusable, specifically splat rule books. Sure they had campaign setting books, but less and less focused seemed to be on that part of the business.
As time passed the splat books got worse and worse as the pickings got more and more slim for what you can do with rules when you are putting out 3 books a month.
They needed to sell books, they had nothing to add for 3.5 players since they sold off their module and AP division, so...reboot so people have to buy all new books. And while we are at it, reboot the campaign setting so people have to buy all of those. And "fix" the gaming license to assure a monopoly.
One problem. You don't have a module and adventure division, because you sold it off. The freelancers have grown up on 3.5 and are more comfortable writing for it, and even if they weren't the new license is hardly friendly.
So you made a new game. Let's say the new game was just as good. It wasn't in my opinion, but let us just say it was. This new game has a high cost of entry, since all existing material is incompatible, and as far as material to play with it you have frozen out everyone but you to produce content, and you sold off your content production division.
How dumb was that.
You are fixed in this "WoTC was losing money to 3PP" as if it was a Zero sum game. The fact is and was that the real money is in creating content that isn't reusable.
One AP is 96 soft cover pages. It costs 19.99. The 500 page rulebook is 49.99, of which they have said it is about 40 dollars is the cost to make it. So 10 dollar profit on a core rulebook you can keep for years, and probably about the same (if not more) profit for the 19.99 booklet I need to get every month.
Paizo realizes the rules can be as open as you like, as long as people play. Because if they play the will buy modules, AP's, and now books (also disposable) and miniatures (less disposable, but generally campaign specific). They put out a rule book every few months (instead of 3 a month) and focus on writing play material because once you run it you will need more.
The fact that WoTC has lost the last 2 quarters to a company they were trying to kill a few years ago, that had no brand recognition 5 years ago, that is basically running the same game they were running 5 years ago...
If WoTC had done what Paizo did and not sold off Dragon and Dungeon, they would still be the unquestioned kings of the market. It is ridiculously bad business strategy that they aren't, considering all of the market advantages they had.
I can't believe you are trying to defend a decision even the company has given up on.
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1. I don't expect they'll repeat the OGL "mistake" and "give away the farm" for free again--which is why we got the GSL in place of the OGL for 4e.How did they "give away the farm"? Gaming blossomed because of the OGL, and WotC's customer base grew enormously. Mike Mearls has confirmed that. The OGL didn't "give away" anything.
And if it was such a bad idea, then why do so many other game companies do exactly the same thing?
Don't forget that TSR was bankrupt. The OGL was what made 3.5 work. It encouraged 3PP and freelancers to write for the product, basically creating a free advertising arm which expanded use of the product.
If the OGL was the problem, Paizo would be floundering and WoTC wouldn't be putting out a new edition.
WoTC is weak now because they abandoned the OGL. They never would have brought the brand back without it.
I don't know about other people but I know why I left 4E after a year of playing. I don't like the Encounter/Daily exploits, healing surges, and minions. It is that simple for me. It has been a few years since I played but I also seem to remember that there were no spellcraft checks, counterspells, and spell components in 4E - I loved that stuff. I also don't like the fix to grapple in 4E (called grab?). It seems that they just took away options instead of streamlining it. I like the way Pathfinder repaired it more.
That's not really an alternative. That's actually the sort of thing I was arguing for as real reasons. You didn't rebel against 4e out of disgust at perceived slights in marketing. You just didn't like the system.
I would argue that you don't understand the business model well enough to see why you backed the wrong horse.
Wrong horse?
That horse turned out quite well for me. I'm not racing against you.
Except in the case of exceptional GMs, a game system is only as good as the setting and modules you play with it.
WoTC owned "Dungeon" and "Dragon" Magazines, which were purchased by Paizo. The core of Paizo's staff, James and Erik, were the editors of each magazine. The magazines produced what should have been the cash cows of the Dungeons and Dragon empire, the primary non-renewable resource of the gaming world. Adventures and modules.
Instead they sold that piece off.
It's interesting that you consider adventures "non-renewable." What percentage of published adventures do you imagine the average D&D player experiences in play? I would wager less than 10%. Probably much less. The reason Paizo has enjoyed as much success as they have is that they came up with a business model that plays to the strengths of a subscription model. They're producing tons of adventure content and ensuring that it's of high enough quality that people will continue to buy it knowing that in all likelihood they'll never play it.
I have a friend with five complete Pathfinder APs sitting on his shelf. Out of those thirty modules he received through his subscription, he has used one of them.
Adventure content isn't successful because it's "non-renewable" - indeed, Paizo is producing adventure content at such a fast pace that it's practically impossible to use it all up! Adventure content is successful for Paizo because people have bought into the idea of the Pathfinder line of adventures as cool and exciting and a "Maybe one of these days I'll get around to doing more than just flipping through these!" kind of thing.
I run Pathfinder APs like a crazy person (by any reasonable standard), and I haven't even run anything that was actually written for the Pathfinder system yet!
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I don't know about other people but I know why I left 4E after a year of playing. I don't like the Encounter/Daily exploits, healing surges, and minions. It is that simple for me. It has been a few years since I played but I also seem to remember that there were no spellcraft checks, counterspells, and spell components in 4E - I loved that stuff. I also don't like the fix to grapple in 4E (called grab?). It seems that they just took away options instead of streamlining it. I like the way Pathfinder repaired it more.That's not really an alternative. That's actually the sort of thing I was arguing for as real reasons. You didn't rebel against 4e out of disgust at perceived slights in marketing. You just didn't like the system.
Oh yeah sorry I didn't really follow the thread back far enough.
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Wrong horse?That horse turned out quite well for me. I'm not racing against you.
Scott, you've been the resident 4E apologist for years, and the fact that it is being abandoned and replaced makes your position a bit untenable, even if you won't admit it. Not to mention the fact that Paizo is in the sales lead despite being just another 3PP a few years ago demonstrates your assertions of what the business requires were, well, wrong.
As to the other point, once you read an AP, you can't play it. Once you play an AP, you can run it, but you can never play it again. It is a single use item. I am a subscriber and I haven't run half of the AP's I've gotten. Jade Regent is in my wife's hands to run at some point, so I haven't even personally read it.
My core rulebook is beat all to hell, I have Advanced, UM, UC, and Bestiary 1 and 2 (I'll get three at some point, Christmas didn't work out). Those books I share with friends who come over, get passed around the table, they are public property of the group.
The APs and modules, by nature, can't be community property. Your friend has 30 modules, and each one he read he has now used. He can't play in them, he can only run them. And the value of the modules depends on the game they were written for continuing to be played by large groups of people.
If you bought 4E modules and APs, they now have a shelf life. 4E wasn't OGL, so when it's gone it's gone. No one else will write for it, no one else will run conventions. It's a dead gaming language.
Personally, that is fine by me, but it isn't encouraging to me to invest in a company that isn't invested in the long run of the product.
Your friend may use those 30 modules over his lifetime. Maybe his kids will use them, maybe some are unread so he can hand them to someone else when he wants to play. They are a single use product to players, and a limited use product to GM's.
Much like gasoline vs roads, one you will have to buy more of and one you only have to maintain.
I suspect you know this, but you are too invested in your position to back away at this point.
Scott, you've been the resident 4E apologist for years, and the fact that it is being abandoned and replaced makes your position a bit untenable, even if you won't admit it. Not to mention the fact that Paizo is in the sales lead despite being just another 3PP a few years ago demonstrates your assertions of what the business requires were, well, wrong.
You misunderstand me. I'm saying that "betting" on 4e (in the sense that I bought into it) turned out very well for me. It was the right horse. I've played a ton of 3.5, a good deal of Pathfinder, and a lot of 4e, and 4e fits what I want out of D&D better than the others do. So I can't really agree with your insistence that I bet on the wrong horse. Indeed, had I bet on any other horse, I probably wouldn't be as satisfied with my games.
As to the other point, once you read an AP, you can't play it. Once you play an AP, you can run it, but you can never play it again. It is a single use item.
Right, but it's like calling the sun a non-renewable resource. I mean, sure, once the sun is used up it's used up and we won't be getting another one, but on the other hand it's the sun and won't be going anywhere for billions of years. We can't even take full advantage of what we've already got.
The APs and modules, by nature, can't be community property. Your friend has 30 modules, and each one he read he has now used.
But he hasn't read 28 of them. In fact, we're playing in a CoT games run by another DM using his copy of Bastards of Erebus that he never read!
The idea that adventures can't be community property is baseless.
If you bought 4E modules and APs, they now have a shelf life.
What shelf life?
Do they expire when 4e goes out of print? Hardly, I can continue to play 4e as long as I have the books.
Do they expire when I decide to stop running 4e? Nope, I can always convert them to the current system (like I do with Pathfinder APs).
I'm really not seeing a shelf life for adventures.
4E wasn't OGL, so when it's gone it's gone. No one else will write for it, no one else will run conventions. It's a dead gaming language.
Languages don't die when Merriam-Webster decides to stop printing dictionaries.
My point is simply this: Pathfinder owes its success to the quality of its products, not to any inherent limited-usefulness. Limited use only comes into play when that limit is reached, and Paizo is publishing Pathfinder adventures at such a rate that only the most prolific D&D players can hope to experience all of the adventures. People buy Pathfinder APs because they are cool and exciting and people like reading them and imagining what the games they could run with them might be like, or drawing inspiration from some of the non-adventure content (like the supplementary chapters) which are themselves largely reusable. Only a fraction of the total copies of Pathfinder APs will ever be used to run the adventure contained within.