Squee!!'s page

nemmokokok wrote:

Man, remember when the OGL supported the main game of DnD, and didn't add competition to it? I remember that, some people seem to have forgotten though...

Remember when WotC radically changed what the "main game of DnD" was, so that older materials weren't compatible with the rules everyone was using?

You mean 3rd edition?

That still doesn't really answer my question even if you meant 4th edition, considering that you said the reason the OGL was good was because people still needed to buy WOTC products to play games and also it allowed people to make niche products WOTC wouldn't bother with, it's a win-win!

Funnily enough, Pathfinder is neither of those things, it just explicitly copies the both the concepts of DnD 3.5 and the design model. I don't really care if "you helped make it" either, so did a lot of people and you don't see them making slightly different copies of DnD.

Man, remember when the OGL supported the main game of DnD, and didn't add competition to it? I remember that, some people seem to have forgotten though...

Q: What do you think of the Open Gaming movement?

A: ... Wizards is the real winner. All of those people writing for and playing with the d20 system need the 3 core books to do it (well, they can just get by with downloading the SRD, but most people prefer actual books). That means every time company X sells a copy of their Troll Anime Superheroes d20 game, it's going to someone familiar with the Player's Handbook (and probably owns one or more PHs). In other words, increased sales for WotC. And all of these other companies are filling the niche markets that WotC doesn't have the staff to write for, so WotC isn't getting annoying fan letters about "How come you don't publish what I want?" These other companies can also handle the smaller, less profitable books like adventures, which are too expensive for WotC to produce and still make money on; WotC has a large support staff and a large overhead, compared to "Three Guys In a Basement Games," which don't have to allocate part of their profits to a human resources department, shipping & receiving, or any other employees that are necessary for a good-sized business but don't contribute directly to the company's bottom line). If TGiaBG makes $500 selling 100 copies of their new adventure, they're happy; if WotC makes $5,000 selling 1,000 copies of their new adventure, it's a waste of time. True, some people at WotC still see the OGL as "competition" to D&D, but it's not ... the OGL supports D&D, drives sales of D&D, and strengthens the market share of D&D.

So, does pathfinder fulfill a different niche market that helps the sales of WOTC, or does it add competition to WOTC and is just DnD 3.75?