| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So what about D&D Next? Will Hasbro learn from history and put out the next version under an OGL? Or will the corporate types that gave us D&D4 again work to keep the game under lock and key, closed to third party developers? Well, there's no definitive answer yet, but as I shake my handy Magic 8 Ball, well, "Outlook not so good."
Just yesterday, May 29, 2014, we got a blog post on the OGL issue from Mike Mearls, lead developer for D&D Next. Titled "Gazing into the Crystal Ball," Mearls basically says that the issue has not been decided yet, please give him and Hasbro time to get things right, and we'll have an answer next year. But if you read the blog post carefully, there are a number of things that just strike a sour sour note. Read between the lines with me …
First off, the entire thing reads like it went through three layers of lawyers. It's not quite up to NSA levels of obfuscation and misdirection, but the tone is just … off. Discouraging, in my opinion.
Mearls says, "we want to empower D&D fans to create their own material and make their mark on the many, exciting worlds of D&D." That sounds great, but look at what he does NOT say! He does not say he wants to empower third party companies to produce product materials. It's all about the fans, not about being as open as an actual OGL would be.
Meals continues, "we want to ensure that the quality of anything D&D fans create is as high as possible." What does THAT mean?! How can Hasbro "ensure" that "anything" D&D fans create is high quality? Under D&D3 and the OGL, there was no quality compliance mechanism -- and a lot of crap product was produced! But we were free to make crap. This "ensuring" that "fans" produce high quality material sounds vaguely Orwellian and strikingly NOT OGL compliant!
Here's my personal prediction, more detailed than a Magic 8 Ball. Hasbro will announce a registration or subscription service for D&D "fans" -- and allow widespread "publication" of fan-created works only within that walled garden. No third party products at all. And that's going to be just sad.
To be fair, Mearls is asking for some time, so we'll see. I hope I am wrong.
For a deeper look at the background on this topic, check out my blog post on the subject.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sounds to me like...
Take time to really read both the rules and spirit of dnd before you think about releasing stuff......some truly awful awful stuff came out from 3ppm when 3e was released.
There is no harm in trying to do things right......even in these days of the impatient internet
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Don't think its that troubling. Sounds much more reasonable then the debacle of the OGL/GSL process back in 4e days. He's not promising a license is coming, materials son, keeping folks hanging on but nothing forthcoming.
Its a slower, reasonable approach. Quality is a problem with OGL. OGl had great freedom, and openness, but lets be honest, there was a ton of crap produced as well. And no one wants to see anther book o erotic fantasy again....
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
You know the Book of Erotic Fantasy is everyone's whipping boy when it comes to talking about the OGL. But I'll take 100 of those if in the end I still wound up with a BOOK OF THE RIGHTEOUS, or a MUTANTS and MASTERMINDS or a SPYCRAFT or PTOLUS or the BOOKS OF ELDRICH MIGHT and the rest of the Malhavoc or Green Ronin or Goodman Games or Necromancer games offerings.
If you really want to talk about a company's product that was bad, FAST FORWARD GAMES.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
With the caveat that I wasn't playing during the heyday of 3.x, I'm not sure it's possible to draw a bright line to separate the crap from the good stuff. It's not a matter of shelf space, either. Paizo or DriveThru pay a negligible cost to store pdfs, and the bad stuff won't sell as well. I also get twitchy when I hear terms like "the spirit of dnd" tossed around; I'll bet that asking any ten gamers what that means will net you at least a dozen answers.
OTOH, what probably keeps Hasbro's lawyers up at night is the prospect of having a 3PP come up with an idea very close to their next release. Not a lot of litigiousness in the gaming industry lately, but it could happen.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've lost count of how many times I've said this since Mearls' post, but given the example of OSR retro-clones, there's no reason a 3pp couldn't produce a Next/5E compatible product under the current OGL, regardless of how WotC sanction fan created content for the new edition.
Semi-sorta agreeing with John here, the WotC legal actions I'm aware of from the last couple of years have been over product identity likenesses rather than similarity of game mechanics.
It's a slower, reasonable approach ...
I agree with thenovalord and carmachu that there is nothing wrong with taking your time. Mearls is entirely reasonable about that, and I applaud the openness with which the playtesting has been carried out. Timing is not the issue.
The issue is this:
We want to ensure that the quality of anything D&D fans create is as high as possible.
He's not saying anything about publishers! He's talking about "D&D fans"! Well, who the heck is Mearls to tell me, a fan, that my creations have to meet his standards for quality?
He's not talking about quality for third-party publishers, because Hasbro wants no third party publishers. He's talking about you, me and the people on this board! He wants "fans" to make high quality content. He wants to "ensure" it!
How do you think Mearls is planning to ensure that the house rules, monsters, and modules YOU make will be high quality?
Maybe Hasbro will issue how-to guides and design notes for variant creation. That would be great! Maybe Hasbro will make a walled garden for subscribers, and only approved variants will go there. That would be bad. Maybe Hasbro will go after anyone who releases variant materials outside their walled garden. That would be worse.
Just looking at the range of possibilities, here, and I personally am not encouraged by the way they handled D&D version 4.
With the caveat that I wasn't playing during the heyday of 3.x ....
John, I *was* playing back in the heyday of 2.0, back when TSR was sending takedown notices to fans who put D&D stuff online. They did not want any fan-created content on the Web that they could not control or profit from. I'm not making up the worst-case scenario -- I lived through it.
I talk about this in my blog post too. Here:
See, we can already play D&D 3.5 for free -- and we can play its most popular successor, Pathfinder, for free too. Putting a "basic" edition of the new game out there (but not the premium options) is a step backward.
You see, back when D&D 3 was released, a visionary at Wizards of the Coast (the company that bought D&D from TSR, before it was itself bought out by Hasbro) convinced the Powers That Be to release the game under an Open Game License, so that anyone could produce D&D content for fun (as hobbyists) or even as third party product, for profit.
It is hard to explain what an incredible thing this was. I remember living through D&D 2 and the beginning of the Internet. If you put up anything online about D&D, you stood the very real risk of getting a takedown notice (and threat of suit) from the folks at TSR, then owner of the game. Those unenlightened bottom-line-oriented people had no idea what the Web was, and they were scared of it, and they actively fought hobbyists and enthusiasts who "threatened their intellectual property." Check out my review of some D&D 2.0 wemic content, published on my wemic site back in those days, and see how fearful I was about stepping on the TSR copyright, and making sure I was only publishing "fair use" material. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see how I tried to cover my butt, back in 1999.
|
|
You know the Book of Erotic Fantasy is everyone's whipping boy when it comes to talking about the OGL. But I'll take 100 of those if in the end I still wound up with a BOOK OF THE RIGHTEOUS, or a MUTANTS and MASTERMINDS or a SPYCRAFT or PTOLUS or the BOOKS OF ELDRICH MIGHT and the rest of the Malhavoc or Green Ronin or Goodman Games or Necromancer games offerings.
If you really want to talk about a company's product that was bad, FAST FORWARD GAMES.
Well yes, it is. And its bad. But yes pick any of the may other BAD products out there. It might be the whipping boy, but its not the only really bad product out there....
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
they need another year to get any OGL right?
They have had years to think about it, ever since 4e's shining example.
This means to me nothing but nit-pickey, hard to understand rules that really promise you nothing except many threatening letters and phone calls from Harsbo lawyers.
That means a year of no 3PP for D&D Next and only what Hasbro put out or contract out through companies like Kobold.
Exactly. They've had years since they began working on DDN behind closed doors, and since the lessons-learned from the 4e GSL debacle, to figure out how to approach an OGL for DDN. When they say they need until next year to work it out, that tells me that they want people to get invested in the game before they come back to say there won't be an OGL for 3PPs. Or what Gorbacz said: the OGL will only cover fan-created, free works.
-Skeld
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Here's all I will say about the OGL. It was a nice thing for WotC to do when they were still an independent, run by gamers for gamers. But, honestly, other than helping small companies make some money off of gaming they might not have been able to do like they did in the Eighties when everyone had their own system or had to get licensing to publish D&D stuff (Judge's Guild, Mayfair Games with "Role Aids", etc), it really wasn't a great business decision. It helped in the short term, but, ultimately, it allowed one of those small companies to take their ball when WotC didn't want to play with it any more and use it to vault ahead of them in the fantasy TTRPG market. So, it kind of bit them in the butt.
The GSL was a letdown because it was a more "normal" type of licensing agreement, and everyone felt entitled that WotC should just share everything they make. I have no problem if WotC goes with a more "normal", more restrictive licensing agreement. They have the right to control who publishes under their rules, and a right to some control over what's attached to their brand.
The OGL spoiled us, we need to stop feeling like everything should be "open source" or it isn't right. Paizo kind of had to do their own version of the OGL, otherwise, they would have been kind of hypocritical, considering Pathfinder is basically 3.5 with houserules.
|
|
You know the Book of Erotic Fantasy is everyone's whipping boy when it comes to talking about the OGL. But I'll take 100 of those if in the end I still wound up with a BOOK OF THE RIGHTEOUS, or a MUTANTS and MASTERMINDS or a SPYCRAFT or PTOLUS or the BOOKS OF ELDRICH MIGHT and the rest of the Malhavoc or Green Ronin or Goodman Games or Necromancer games offerings.
If you really want to talk about a company's product that was bad, FAST FORWARD GAMES.
This. I was trying to get at that in my post, but working from a phone when you're in a hurry does not lend itself to good wordsmithing.
|
|
| 14 people marked this as a favorite. |
Seriously, as much as I have no love for Hasbro, I'm not going to slam them if they don't have a completely open license, or only open it up for fan generated non-profit creative endeavors. It's their game, they have the right, and it isn't "evil" or "wrong" for them to control their brand.
|
|
With the caveat that I wasn't playing during the heyday of 3.x ....John, I *was* playing back in the heyday of 2.0, back when TSR was sending takedown notices to fans who put D&D stuff online. They did not want any fan-created content on the Web that they could not control or profit from. I'm not making up the worst-case scenario -- I lived through it.
The attitude predates 2e, IIRC--in the late 70s, well before the internet had really taken off, a friend of mine had a button with a pic of the TSR lizard man committing a then-illegal act on a male gamer, with the caption "TSR f*cks fans." That's why I qualified my comment about litigiousness with "lately." The 2e stuff all happened while I was on hiatus from gaming--combination of parenting and grad school--but I heard about it.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Book of erotic fantasy was rather okay. The horribad parts of it were the illustrations. There was so much that was oh so much worse. People act as if bad quality is some kind of threat. It never was. Nothing prevented anyone from reading reviews of books before buying them.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Here's all I will say about the OGL. It was a nice thing for WotC to do when they were still an independent, run by gamers for gamers. But, honestly, other than helping small companies make some money off of gaming they might not have been able to do like they did in the Eighties when everyone had their own system or had to get licensing to publish D&D stuff (Judge's Guild, Mayfair Games with "Role Aids", etc), it really wasn't a great business decision.
In my opinion, it did not just help small companies. It also strengthened the hobby, brought more people into the game, injected huge amounts of creativity, enriched the D&D experience, and of course led to the Pathfinder game we now enjoy.
Was it a sound business decision for WOTC? Ryan Dancey says it was:
In all of 1989, when TSR transitioned from the 1st to the 2nd Edition of D&D, it sold 289,000 copies of the Players Handbook. In 2000 when Wizards of the Coast did that transition from 2nd to 3rd, it sold 300,000 Player’s handbooks in one month. And then, sales continued to grow. The core idea behind the OGL was that Wizards of the Coast should focus on the highest value part of the D&D ecology – the core books and a handful of core adventures, while the rest of the industry explored and exploited all the niches and genres that Wizards couldn’t do profitability.
Go read the rest of his long great article on how the OGL contributed to the great success of D&D3.0.
The OGL spoiled us, we need to stop feeling like everything should be "open source" or it isn't right. ... Seriously, as much as I have no love for Hasbro, I'm not going to slam them if they don't have a completely open license, or only open it up for fan generated non-profit creative endeavors. It's their game, they have the right, and it isn't "evil" or "wrong" for them to control their brand.
I agree with Derek that the OGL "spoiled" us. Which is to say, it is a superior option that satisfies fans. I also agree with Derek that Hasbro is under no obligation to release D&D Next with an OGL. But in my not-so-humble opinion, I also have no obligation to buy it. I did not buy 4.0, and I now expect not to buy 5.0. I expect that without an OGL, a LOT of fans will vote, like I will, with our wallets, and stick to Pathfinder and other OGL products.
That's the greatest part of the OGL -- it guaranteed that D&D 3.0 at least will be available for ever.
Book of erotic fantasy was rather okay. The horribad parts of it were the illustrations. There was so much that was oh so much worse. People act as if bad quality is some kind of threat. It never was. Nothing prevented anyone from reading reviews of books before buying them.
EXACTLY.
The way that I got turned on to the "Good" 3rd party stuff and steered away from the "Bad" stuff was mainly through reviews and word of mouth. But people also like to pretend that these things exist on a scale where the material was horrid or AMAZING.
I bought a lot of 3rd party stuff. Most of it WASN'T bad. A lot of it was just utilitarian. You just USED IT. Some stuff like the Fast Forward Games stuff was really not good. It was as if the people putting together the material didn't quite get how some things in 3x worked? But the good stuff that came out of the OGL was more exiting and fun and impacted my game more than the bad stuff did.
That's just my experience though.
|
|
Here's all I will say about the OGL. It was a nice thing for WotC to do when they were still an independent, run by gamers for gamers. But, honestly, other than helping small companies make some money off of gaming they might not have been able to do like they did in the Eighties when everyone had their own system or had to get licensing to publish D&D stuff (Judge's Guild, Mayfair Games with "Role Aids", etc), it really wasn't a great business decision.In my opinion, it did not just help small companies. It also strengthened the hobby, brought more people into the game, injected huge amounts of creativity, enriched the D&D experience, and of course led to the Pathfinder game we now enjoy.
Was it a sound business decision for WOTC? Ryan Dancey says it was:
In all of 1989, when TSR transitioned from the 1st to the 2nd Edition of D&D, it sold 289,000 copies of the Players Handbook. In 2000 when Wizards of the Coast did that transition from 2nd to 3rd, it sold 300,000 Player’s handbooks in one month. And then, sales continued to grow. The core idea behind the OGL was that Wizards of the Coast should focus on the highest value part of the D&D ecology – the core books and a handful of core adventures, while the rest of the industry explored and exploited all the niches and genres that Wizards couldn’t do profitability.Go read the rest of his long great article on how the OGL contributed to the great success of D&D3.0.
The OGL spoiled us, we need to stop feeling like everything should be "open source" or it isn't right. ... Seriously, as much as I have no love for Hasbro, I'm not going to slam them if they don't have a completely open license, or only open it up for fan generated non-profit creative endeavors. It's their game,...
Did Dancy mention that TSR kept printing the 1e book for about five years after 2e was released because it was still selling like crazy? I thought not.
See also: James Jacob's post saying he saw ALL of the numbers, and nothing 3e did came close to what TSR did with the 1e PHB.
|
|
The TSR 2e PHB didn't even sell better than the 1e book in those years. Removing the assassin, the half orc, and a bunch of other stuff kept the 1e system alive, and people just bought the 2e supplements, since the two systems were mechanically identical for all intents and purposes, and the people who were playing for years at that point (a lot of high school kids and older) didn't need an almost identical game that watered down the fluff and took out the stuff that offended the Christians who were making all the fuss in the '80s. Apples and oranges, I'm afraid.
Seriously, for all of the hype about 3e, TTRPG in the 2000s and beyond is a nice niche hobby compared to the phenomenon it was in the '80s.
Because there were no competing RPGs in the 1980s. All that pent-up demand was satisfied by the 1E system. I would argue that the true comparison is to look at total RPG players (tabletop and online and videogame) over time. Bu that measure, WOW!
Certainly, thoughtful people can disagree about whether OGL games or non-OGL games are more profitable or more popular or "better for the hobby." The OGL issues are totally entangled with game quality issues and larger gaming ecosystem issues. Fortunately, no one has to win that argument, because we can and do have both kinds of games -- and we can choose to play the ones we prefer.
|
|
Book of erotic fantasy was rather okay. The horribad parts of it were the illustrations. There was so much that was oh so much worse. People act as if bad quality is some kind of threat. It never was. Nothing prevented anyone from reading reviews of books before buying them.
True. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a glut o rally bad products out durng OGL.....with some absolute shining stars like say Ptolus.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Seriously, for all of the hype about 3e, TTRPG in the 2000s and beyond is a nice niche hobby compared to the phenomenon it was in the '80s.Because there were no competing RPGs in the 1980s. All that pent-up demand was satisfied by the 1E system. I would argue that the true comparison is to look at total RPG players (tabletop and online and videogame) over time. Bu that measure, WOW!
Certainly, thoughtful people can disagree about whether OGL games or non-OGL games are more profitable or more popular or "better for the hobby." The OGL issues are totally entangled with game quality issues and larger gaming ecosystem issues. Fortunately, no one has to win that argument, because we can and do have both kinds of games -- and we can choose to play the ones we prefer.
Never heard of Runequest? Popular game. Rolemaster? Quite popular back then. The original Warhammer RPG? There was plenty of competition. TSR just had the most popular game. Not to mention to metric ton of non-fantasy, non-TSR roleplaying games that were very popular. Champions, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, all of the West End d6 games (Star Wars, Paranoia, Ghostbusters). Dude, they just weren't all hanging their hat on the same system, they were actually creating new ways to play.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Seriously, for all of the hype about 3e, TTRPG in the 2000s and beyond is a nice niche hobby compared to the phenomenon it was in the '80s.Because there were no competing RPGs in the 1980s. All that pent-up demand was satisfied by the 1E system.
Wait...What?!?
Were you actually around in the 80's? Because while D&D was the most popular I distinctly remember playing a whole lot of other games alongside D&D. Some of those games? Were other TSR games! TOP SECRET. BOOT HILL. STAR FRONTIERS. MARVEL SUPER HEROES.
DC HEROES, VILLAINS AND VIGILANTES, CHAMPIONS, PALLADIUM. GURPS.
So are you just forgetting that there were these other games out there? Some of which are STILL around today?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because there were no competing RPGs in the 1980s.Wait...What?!?
Were you actually around in the 80's? Because while D&D was the most popular I distinctly remember playing a whole lot of other games alongside D&D. Some of those games? Were other TSR games! TOP SECRET. BOOT HILL. STAR FRONTIERS. MARVEL SUPER HEROES.
DC HEROES, VILLAINS AND VIGILANTES, CHAMPIONS, PALLADIUM. GURPS.
So are you just forgetting that there were these other games out there? Some of which are STILL around today?
Excellent point, and I miss-typed. I was comparing the current level of Tabletop RPGers then to the total of Tabletop and Video RPGers now. I should have been much clearer and said, "Because there were no competing video RPGs in the 1980s. All that pent-up demand was satisfied by many pen and paper systems, especially 1E D&D."
Thanks for keeping me honest!
|
|
That was actually one thing I didn't like about the OGL explosion back in the early 2000s. Everything got overtaken by d20 variants. Lots of those came out, but it seemed that there were actually less other new systems or even updates of existing non-d20 games. Some (like Call of Cthulhu) released d20 versions, which IMO didn't work as well as the original.
Me too. I enjoyed the Midnight campaign setting, but I felt the d20 system wasn't the right one to represent the kind of "doom and gloom, you're never going to 'win'" feel the setting was going for. I've always thought WEG Star Wars was the best iteration (SAGA Star Wars was ok, d20 was a dog). d20 Cthulhu? Ugh. Champions > Mutants and Masterminds, and, as much as I'm not a fan of White Wolf (I'm not "goth" enough or something to get into vampires and werewolves that much, I guess), but I thought, mechanically, it represented the genre better than Cook's d20 version did.
|
|
Because there were no competing RPGs in the 1980s.Wait...What?!?
Were you actually around in the 80's? Because while D&D was the most popular I distinctly remember playing a whole lot of other games alongside D&D. Some of those games? Were other TSR games! TOP SECRET. BOOT HILL. STAR FRONTIERS. MARVEL SUPER HEROES.
DC HEROES, VILLAINS AND VIGILANTES, CHAMPIONS, PALLADIUM. GURPS.
So are you just forgetting that there were these other games out there? Some of which are STILL around today?
Excellent point, and I miss-typed. I was comparing the current level of Tabletop RPGers then to the total of Tabletop and Video RPGers now. I should have been much clearer and said, "Because there were no competing video RPGs in the 1980s. All that pent-up demand was satisfied by many pen and paper systems, especially 1E D&D."
Thanks for keeping me honest!
Yep, TTRPGs had no competition (no real competition) in the Eighties, I agree. TSR had plenty of it, though.
I do kind of disagree about the video games in one respect, though. All they did was force TTRPG further into a niche. And they're not really "competing" against TTRPG, since they aren't even threatened by TTRPG. TTRPG in general is less popular because consoles and computers can do all the math, make everything faster, and in today's "gotta have it now" world, taking four hours to resolve something a computer can do in five minutes isn't exactly a selling point (seriously, 3x and 4e combats can take forever, and most of that time is "fun" stuff like trying to remember a zillion conditional modifiers to every action).
Hopefully 5e can speed things up and maybe get some computer gamers back into the fold.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm surprised a little there is such a vocal resistance to potentially buying and playing 5E based on the degree to which it has or doesn't have an OGL. It would be like deciding not to support a restaurant because the chef doesn't share his or her recipes instead of based on how the food tastes or the portion size, price, location of the restaurant, service, etc.
For me, as a player, if I like the books and rules I'll get them and play them based on their merits. It's all "D&D" in the generic sense of the term and I can use/convert older content or content from other games at will. I can also play any of those older/other games at will.
Not switching because everyone in your group is happy with 1E or Pathfinder? That makes sense.
Not buying the physical books because you have a small apartment and no space for more books? I get that.
Playing the game based on the playtest or the upcoming free Basic PDF and deciding you don't like it as much as the existing games you play? Makes sense too.
I would LIKE to see a reasonable system come out for third party support. I'd like to see them contract out more to premium companies like Kobold, Green Ronin, Paizo, Cubicle 7, etc. with exclusive specific licenses. I'd like them to have a fan policy that lets people share all sorts of content, at least if not sold for profit.
I do think it's reasonable for them to support a license arrangement that gives people the ability to show compatibility and use the IP in a published work but requires compliance with guidelines that dictate standards and protects their IP. If a book/PDF has D&D on the cover that should tell me as a consumer that it meets some quality level.
Is the reaction mostly a case of not liking some business decisions WotC made in the past and/or not liking the design of some of their products? Hasbro/WotC as a company? Or is it really more philosophical - a belief that a game without an OGL is inferior and less likely to produce quality products? I just don't see the same reaction against FFG when it comes to closed properties like 40K/Star Wars for example. WotC/D&D seem to receive the brunt of this sort of reaction.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
The reason to NOT buy is, for me, because I bought 4th "just because", and that isn't happening again. The driving force behind the reasoning above, that core rulebooks are the most profitable part of a RPG, followed by player splatbooks and introductory books about old settings, and not any sort of adventures or setting books with any sort of depth, is that people buy the core rulebooks of each new edition "just because", and that is a sad, sad anomaly. Screw that. Did that already, got burned, not doing it tomorrow.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My magic 9-ball says: 5E compatibility license for non-profit works only.
My thought from reading the wotc comments was similar. I think he's talking about a license like paizo's CUP (but for rules, not setting).
The reason to NOT buy is, for me, because I bought 4th "just because", and that isn't happening again. The driving force behind the reasoning above, that core rulebooks are the most profitable part of a RPG, followed by player splatbooks and introductory books about old settings, and not any sort of adventures or setting books with any sort of depth, is that people buy the core rulebooks of each new edition "just because", and that is a sad, sad anomaly. Screw that. Did that already, got burned, not doing it tomorrow.OTOH, you can get the Basic rules free, play that version and see if that hooks you enough to want more.
That's a far cry from "just because" and I don't see how you'd get burned.
I plan on downloading the free rules just to look them over but have no intention of buying the hardcopy rules. I think I'm done with edition treadmills especially D&D's. If 5E or NEXT is still going strong in two years and doing really well I might play or think about running a game but beyond that? Not really excited for it. I'm not a fan of rules light systems. I'd rather have something and not need it than to need something and not have it you know?
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My reasoning for not transitioning to DDN is for becaue i have a ton of PF material and PF/3.5 scratches my gaming itch (and my group's). Outside of curiousity, the DDN OGL/GSL/Whatever doesn't play into my decisions.
When Paizo puts out a second edition of PF, I have a sneaking suspicion it will still be backward compatible to 3.5/PF. If not, I'll make decisions from there.
-Skeld
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
When Paizo puts out a second edition of PF, I have a sneaking suspicion it will still be backward compatible to 3.5/PF.
I have a sneaking suspicion that you're correct; and I look forward to seeing what they can do with a little more room to breath. It seems like there is plenty of room to design something a bit more clear, concise, and consistent that maintains a high degree of compatibility. I really liked the Beginner Box, for example.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The OGL doesn't really impact my decision to buy DDN one way or the other. I've collected Pathfinder RPG books and some others. I'll continue to do so. My current 3.x game is as much 3.5 and homebrew as it is PF. If I run DDN I'm sure it will be home brewed as well. I have always modified aspects of the game, from 1974 on. 3PP have contributed to my reading material, and my game but so have posters here. I gave away my 4E books not because of the GSL / OGL but because it wasn't a game I wanted to play or run. It was OK, just not for me. DDN looks more like something I would play or DM. And, buy.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
As my only two 3pp works I own are Liche Lords and Dragon Lords by Mayfair games for 1e, I am not really worried about any sort of OGL.
3.5e/PF/4e having such a formal reliance on miniatures in play turned me off seriously adopting any of these games. I learned my D&D under 1e at High School were we played at lunch time (about 40 mins game time). We managed to play many adventures from TSR during a year due to the game not having a formal miniatures structure making combats much longer.
OGL never was something that made me want to try d20, it was more that it was the 'latet' version of a game I really liked.
My point... DDN doesn't assume miniature play so I am interested in having a bash and even if there is zero 3pp publications it won't influence my opinon of the game.
It is a tricky one, with the relese of the old D&D's from WotC all editions are sort of current. I know retro-clones have been around for a while. But why would I play those when I can buy a brand new copy of 1e?
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel old now because i both remember and played all of Shinhakkaider's and Houstonderek's listed games above.
Thanks Guys!
/cry
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel old now because i both remember and played all of Shinhakkaider's and Houstonderek's listed games above.
Thanks Guys!
/cry
Ha I ran a game of Rolemaster last night.
He's not saying anything about publishers! He's talking about "D&D fans"! Well, who the heck is Mearls to tell me, a fan, that my creations have to meet his standards for quality?
I think you might be jumping the gun on this. It's fair to say that essentially every single third-party publisher counts as a "fan" of D&D. I don't know anyone who makes D&D products and doesn't count himself a fan. He could be referring to either group here, or both.
Also, nowhere is he saying that your creations have to meet his standards. It goes without saying that he expects DMs to be creating and running their own adventures as soon as the game is released. He is interested in controlling (obviously to a limited degree) the quality of materials that are made publicly available and (probably) that bear D&D brand identification of some sort, even if it's just a "Compatible with 5th Edition D&D" sticker.
Like I've said in other 5e GSL/OGL? threads, I hope they don't make an OGL similar to what we saw with 3e. Using the basic set should be enough for 3PP to create their own and go from there. We don't need the glut of terrible (IMO of course) products we saw with 3e.
He's not saying anything about publishers! He's talking about "D&D fans"! Well, who the heck is Mearls to tell me, a fan, that my creations have to meet his standards for quality?
I think you might be jumping the gun on this. It's fair to say that essentially every single third-party publisher counts as a "fan" of D&D. I don't know anyone who makes D&D products and doesn't count himself a fan. He could be referring to either group here, or both.
Also, nowhere is he saying that your creations have to meet his standards. It goes without saying that he expects DMs to be creating and running their own adventures as soon as the game is released. He is interested in controlling (obviously to a limited degree) the quality of materials that are made publicly available and (probably) that bear D&D brand identification of some sort, even if it's just a "Compatible with 5th Edition D&D" sticker.
Scott, I'm looking forward to DDN (or 5E if you prefer). I liked the playtest. And I am an alien from Tau Ceti if Mearls was talking about 3PP. Unfortunately, as interesting as alien hood might be, I'm human. I suspect Mearls is talking about some method to support fan produced material. A resource of some type for fans in short. They have a 3PP involved already on a contract basis, Kobold Press. So far that's the only hint of 3PP involvement. I'm indifferent to the licensing agreement (if any) they might use. But, really 3PP = fans? That's stretching the language into new shapes...