Yeah. I'll think it will be a much, much smaller wave, though - the situation will be better for a while than it is with 3.5 right now, but that's not saying much. The Cult of Official is stronger, for one reason.

Quote from: WarthurOn the other hand, six months is a heck of a long time for a cooling-off period.

Yeah. But they can always focus on d20 products or their own engines.

Seanchai

Quote from: Pierce InverarityFunny, Necromancer, a niche company, endorse 4E jubilantly, but Paizo, a mainstream company, are holding off. Why, and how much of this is showmanship--who knows.

I don't know if it's showmanship, but I sure as hell wouldn't commit my business to a game engine I hadn't seen yet.

Were I WotC, I'd let publishers see the game for free, but require $5,000 to do anything with it before 2009.

Seanchai

Looks like Wolfgang Baur is looking to get help buying a kit:

"So, I'm asking the Open Design community for help, with contributions to purchase a license. If the contributions don't add up to $5k by March 1st, you get a full refund of every penny.

If they do add up, any excess is refunded and Open Design buys the license. The patrons who made the 20 largest donations will be freelancers for that project, with access to rules material under a strict NDA. I hope you choose to support Open Design on this occasion."

http://koboldquarterly.com/article001.php

Smart man.

Seanchai

Quote from: SeanchaiLooks like Wolfgang Baur is looking to get help buying a kit:

"So, I'm asking the Open Design community for help, with contributions to purchase a license. If the contributions don't add up to $5k by March 1st, you get a full refund of every penny.

If they do add up, any excess is refunded and Open Design buys the license. The patrons who made the 20 largest donations will be freelancers for that project, with access to rules material under a strict NDA. I hope you choose to support Open Design on this occasion."

http://koboldquarterly.com/article001.php

Smart man.

Seanchai

If it was 2 years ago, i'd drop some money on that for the opportunity. Sadly, i don't have 2 pennies to rub together at the moment, so the boat sails off without me.

See, one thing I don't get is that if $5,000 gives us a free look at 4e before it's made public, what if we don't like what we see? What if we say we don't want to publish using 4e or decide the terms of the new license are too constraining? Do we get a refund?

It's hard to commit to paying five thousand dollars when you don't even really know what you're getting. :raise:

Quote from: Sacrificial LambSee, one thing I don't get is that if $5,000 gives us a free look at 4e before it's made public, what if we don't like what we see? What if we say we don't want to publish using 4e or decide the terms of the new license are too constraining? Do we get a refund?

It's hard to commit to paying five thousand dollars when you don't even really know what you're getting. :raise:

Because D&D is THE market leader by an extremely wide margin added to the fact that WoTC pipeline is unlikely to satisfy demand for diverse products for a while.

For example initial release has three books, two modules and ?. The ? can be filled by the 3rd party guys who signed on. Because D&D is the market leader likely they will at least make the money back with a little profit. Maybe a lot of profit.

Plus they can establish a brand (like Dungeon Crawl Classics) that will assure buyers that they aren't getting crap after Jan 2009.

Of course if 4th edition totally flops then they are out $5,000 less whatever they made in profit from the few books that were sold.

Frankly a total flop is not likely.

What Rob said.

The question Mongoose et al. are asking themselves now is:

"OK, so obviously we will sell at least 10,000 of Teh Complete Dragonborn--but will we sell 50,000? And will Teh Complete X series keep selling steady after that?"

Well, does the new license allow us to create new player races, new classes, spells, monsters, skills, feats, talents, etc? Or are we limited to making adventure modules?

Are we allowed to describe how to create a character using the new license?

What if we want to change how defenses work, and other such stuff? Forgive me my ignorance, but this new license doesn't seem like an "OGL" at all, so I'm a little confused..

I was reading some alternate history which got me thinking about the current situation with 4th edition.

First we have the quality of the rules and their presentation.
Second we have restrictiveness of the SRD.
Third we have the response of the second and third tier publishers

For rules quality I see several possibility

4th edition is D&D's equivalent of Traveller New Era. It has the name but not the same game at all.

4th edition is 3rd Edition rehashed with a radical new mix of feats, skills, races, and classes.

4th edition turns about to a lot more fun game for both players and GMs.

4th edition is a good game and differently but nothing about stands out from previous editions.

4th edition borrows to much from Diablio and World of Warcraft and is a poor RPG.

4th edition just plain sucks as a game.

For #2 we have

The 4th Edition SRD has clauses that allow WoTC to yank the license for inappropriate content.

The SRD Index makes much of the 4th edition available under the open license.

The SRD Index is highly restrictive makes only stats and titles available under the open license.

The SRD Index is moderately restrictive and makes stats, titles, spell descriptions, and item description available under the the open license. But none of the character resolution and the combat/skill resolution rules are made open.

For #3

Only WoTC is considered by the fans and the third party market becomes part of the lower tiers of the RPG market.

The the products made by the initial $5,000 publishers are well-received by the WoTC fans and thrive in the 4th edition market. Post Jan 2009 publishers languish in the lower tiers.

4th edition sinks taking down the entire RPG industry and RPGs become a niche hobby like board and counter wargames.

4th edition is a wild hit (for RPGs that is) and the RPG industry experiences a renaissance.

By Jan 2010 (or mid 2009) Hasbro/WoTC starts suing a ton of third party publisher for making knockoffs. The backlash splits the hobby. This could include 3.75 publishers.

Non D&D, Non D20 RPGs experience a renaissance.

A 2nd tier publisher rejects 4th edition and releases a D20 based RPG that is D&D 3.75.

Said 3.75 competes successfully against 4th edition.

--------------------------------------

I am sure there is more. I don't know what likely going to happy but I believe the possibilities I listed are some of the more probable ones.

Sorry, but I don't see how M&M , C&C and the like will not exist under 4E. WotC cannot go back on the original OGL and they will have an incredibley difficult time enforcing the 4E OGL that they seem to be hinting at since most of the game is based on the 3.5 OGL.

Are they going to need to enforce it, though?  Let's face it, the vast majority of people want to be playing whatever the current, officially sanctioned version of D&D is.  We saw this phenomenon acutely when WotC released 3.5, and shelf upon shelf of third party 3.0 products went untouched overnight.  I suspect that this twist to the SRD/OGL has less to do with inhibiting niche variants and far more to do with controlling and protecting the D&D brand name.

!i!

Quote from: estar4th edition sinks taking down the entire RPG industry and RPGs become a niche hobby like board and counter wargames..

Whoa.  Not to threadjack, but we're not a niche hobby like board and counter wargames?  I think we are, and I think we're about as popular as those games were fifteen years ago.

Quote from: joewolzWhoa.  Not to threadjack, but we're not a niche hobby like board and counter wargames?  I think we are, and I think we're about as popular as those games were fifteen years ago.

I think the RPG Industry is currently an order of magnitude bigger than the Board and Counter wargame manufacturers.

It depends whether you include the Euro Game folks in this category tho. I am not.

We could turn into a niche as small as board and counter if trends continue.

Rob Conley

Quote from: estarI think the RPG Industry is currently an order of magnitude bigger than the Board and Counter wargame manufacturers.

It depends whether you include the Euro Game folks in this category tho. I am not.

I think the RPG industry is much smaller and less healthy than the boardgame industry.  I'm not sure where you draw the line... but i really think RPGs are the niche hobby compared to things like Battlelore, Axis & Allies, Risk, etc etc etc.  I think WotC likely makes more money from their minis game than their RPG books (anyone got any numbers on that?)