Yeah I'm going to go with the "not at all" on the Paizo-killing.  The people who like Pathfinder are...really, really enthusiastic about Pathfinder.  Like I am about 1e, almost.  And maybe moreso.

I reaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllly doubt they're going to leave that Mathematical Computer Language Simulator that is Pathfinder for 5e.

I am not a Paizo fan or a 3e fan. However, I have utmost respect for how Paizo has cultivated both the Paizo and 3e fan base, and has done a remarkable job delivering consistent high quality to them.

Additionally, the 3e & PF fanbase has very active 3rd party support via KS and DriveThru.

Much like OSR fans, they could buy a goodie every month for the rest of their lives and not complete their collections.

BTW, I have read more about the 5e SRD and I will share more about it soon. Short story: Wow, it kicks ass if you want to play in Forgotten Realms. It kicks ass for both customer and author.

I'm kinda bummed I'm not a FR fan. If WotC does a 5e Dark Sun and opens it in the DM's Guild, then I'll choke on 5e just to have the chance to produce DS stuff.

Quote from: Opaopajr;873527That reminds me, I need to make my "Teh Ultimate R0Xorz Class Items!!1!1!Eleven!" Shovelware Item Splat.

Dunno who buys this shit. But obviously at a dollar a pop these businesses are still at it for d20/PF all these years. Must be plenty of empty headed numpties about who "just gotta win 'let's pretend to be an elf!' games."

In it I'm going to have things like:

I Just Won, The Sword - Usable only by fighters. All magic users who oppose your any thought or action disintegrate immediately, no save, no reactions. Also, you just kill everything whenever you want to and if the GM says 'no' just point out that this weapon says that they are wrong.

'OMG Who Farted?' Cape - Usable only by bards and Illusionist specialist wizards. Look at someone with the stank eye, like their booty just exploded, and comment about the smell of flatulence. An odiferous illusion emanates from your target, giving them disadvantage on CHA skill checks.

Stole It All Already, The Boots - Usable only by Rogues. These boots come with 3 charges. Whenever a great treasure hoard is mentioned and you don't want to bother use a charge from these boots and just have all that treasure already. Recharges requires a stolen precious object of another, including those of sentimental nature (such as a child's doll).


(Part of my soul respecting the state of humanity would wither with each sale! Get yours today!)

Why so mad? Especially against the class you seem to have serious issues with and flat hate because they go against the low power stuff you seem to literally orgasm over. Wizards honey, tell me different but be convincing. Just so I have a choice to laugh at you behind your back legally and all.

 This is even better then what Onyx Path does. Buy what works and don't even care about the shit. Nice.

It saddens me that you hate useful cantrips and tells me you have no clue about full magic users even AFTER I played in your ridiculous restricted game and only used cantips, most not combat focused and did just fine.

Methinks you'd hate the game I actually play and run regularly...Mage the Awakening 2e. It's all about being really good in your path, picking a legacy that allows you to be awesome in another area of magic and being decent in 2-3 or areas. At least good enough not to be embarrassed.

So at least hit us with a crown, robe and scepter. Rods, wands, and staffs are optional.

Quote from: Marleycat;873693Why so mad? Especially against the class you seem to have serious issues with and flat hate because they go against the low power stuff you seem to literally orgasm over. Wizards honey, tell me different but be convincing. Just so I have a choice to laugh at you behind your back legally and all.

 This is even better then what Onyx Path does. Buy what works and don't even care about the shit. Nice.

It saddens me that you hate useful cantrips and tells me you have no clue about full magic users even AFTER I played in your ridiculous restricted game and only used cantips, most not combat focused and did just fine.

Methinks you'd hate the game I actually play and run regularly...Mage the Awakening 2e. It's all about being really good in your path, picking a legacy that allows you to be awesome in another area of magic and being decent in 2-3 or areas. At least good enough not to be embarrassed.

So at least hit us with a crown, robe and scepter. Rods, wands, and staffs are optional.

Oh I do hate Mage the Ascension; the intra-game arguments alone were so eye-roll inducing they caused migraines. Mage the Awakening didn't seem interesting to me, but I have no play experience to say otherwise. But the point of that post is against shovelware, as is quite evident from the quoted context.

As to using only cantrips in my game, I had no problem with it. I have a problem with the infinite availability being disruptive to setting and play, but there's bigger reasons than mere PC power for my reasoning. I don't reserve classes for only PCs and never do -- all my NPCs are essentially playable classes.

That infinite cantrips changes the setting dynamics immensely. It also allows players to spam distraction to the level of disruption, like Thaumaturgy or Prestidigitation. Given that my NPCs are classes, and demographics of the RAW classes are half magic users, we're looking at a clusterfuck of magic saturation from the beginning just from the infinite cantrips rule alone.

Yes, that means that if either you or the party cleric so much as loosed an offensive spell -- breaching the accepted social compact of the afternoon brawls involving unarmed strikes only -- in that almost-lynchmob of 60+ people, you would have faced an average of 30 spellcasters of unknown level going off, along with 30 fighters and rogues of unknown level. That is 100% TPK. There is nothing I can do at that point. That's why your party's halfling's earlier breach of drawing and striking with a dagger was such a big deal –- it set the crowd in motion towards a lynchmob.

There's a reason it was the most XP reward of any encounter. It was also unwinnable by combat and why only a fraction was awarded as an alternate.

I wanted you to be non-combat focused in town during the social and investigation parts of the game. Using force lightly, including magic, is what I expect from strangers learning a new place. The setting would kill you otherwise. I had to tone down parts of some encounters because the RAW monster stats available were too disgusting in the quantity I already seeded them in fixed locations.

(Over 100+ ghosts & will o' wisps in the New Graveyard is death incarnate, even if they are strictly tied to the cycle of the New Moon. I had a hell of a time trying to disambiguate the different graveyards and communicate the level of danger the party was in without speaking OOC. You were in an open sandbox and beelined into one of the most lethal areas near town. It was of a magnitude greater than that most lethal quest you accepted of the ones I presented on the bulletin board.)

It sounds like you are very much not used to my style of play. I am sorry to hear you didn't have fun. But you are naturally always welcome in my games.

Quote from: Opaopajr;873705I don't reserve classes for only PCs and never do -- all my NPCs are essentially playable classes.

Just wondering, if the average townsfolk is a classed NPC, and maybe more than first level, then how do you deal with the "what do we need the PCs for" dilemma?

Quote from: CRKrueger;873707Just wondering, if the average townsfolk is a classed NPC, and maybe more than first level, then how do you deal with the "what do we need the PCs for" dilemma?

Very simple, expendability. You're not the only hero. You're not special. You're just useful right now for delegation.

Quote from: Spinachcat;873660BTW, I have read more about the 5e SRD and I will share more about it soon. Short story: Wow, it kicks ass if you want to play in Forgotten Realms. It kicks ass for both customer and author.

Let's not get confused though, the OGL/SRD and DM Guild are different spheres. There's stuff you can do in the Guild you can't do with the SRD and OGL, there's freedoms you have with the SRD and OGL that you don't have with Guild work.

Quote from: S'mon;873454There's more than one OSR playstyle - I think eg 'Fantasy Fucking Vietnam' enthusiast players are not attracted to 5e, but they're not a huge number of players. Other playstyles such as Gonzo and Palaces & Princesses work well with 5e, and you're likely to see 3rd party products for them, I hope (I run a P&P style Mentzer Classic D&D campaign that could well work in 5e, for instance, as well as a gonzo-ish sword & sorcery 5e campaign).

Very true! If I had to guess, I'd say the FFV crowd mostly sticks to the oldies, the Paladins & Princesses crew mostly moves on to 5e, and the gonzo crowd probably adopts both and/or is neatly split in two over system; because I feel gonzo and FFV are overrepresented in OSR publications, I think in the end more OSR publishers will stick to TSR and simulacra, than move over to 5e, but I wouldn't discard dual-statted supplements to become very common in the near future.

Of course, this is all wild speculation (assuming, among other things, that all playstyles have been equally represented in the OSR), but in any case, I think the DM's Guild is an awesome initiative and I don't think the OSR will die any time soon.

Quote from: The Butcher;873743Of course, this is all wild speculation (assuming, among other things, that all playstyles have been equally represented in the OSR), but in any case, I think the DM's Guild is an awesome initiative and I don't think the OSR will die any time soon.

  As the man who coined the term "Paladins & Princesses", I've always been under the impression that the OSR's reaction to it was generally indifferent to hostile. But then, I'm no fan of the OSR (or 5E, really) and have been accused of having a persecution complex.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;873766As the man who coined the term "Paladins & Princesses", I've always been under the impression that the OSR's reaction to it was generally indifferent to hostile.

Yeah, Mentzer & Elmore (BECM Classic D&D) are not exactly big influences on the mainstream OSR, nor is 2e AD&D. There is some P&P material produced for Basic Fantasy RPG, eg 'Fortress of the Iron Duke' in 'The Glain Campaign' is a nice homage to Palace of the Silver Princess which I used successfully. But mostly I have to use actual old TSR stuff like GAZ1 Grand Duchy of Karameikos. By comparison the OSR seems really big on Moldvay & Otus (BX Classic).

Quote from: Opaopajr;873711Very simple, expendability. You're not the only hero. You're not special. You're just useful right now for delegation.

Right, but that kind of limits the nature of the campaign a bit doesn't it, shifting from "We probably can't do it without your help" to "We could do it, but you're more expendable."

That's the balance issue I always had with Classed NPCs especially if they are actually supposed to fulfill a function of protection.

Quote from: CRKrueger;873789Right, but that kind of limits the nature of the campaign a bit doesn't it, shifting from "We probably can't do it without your help" to "We could do it, but you're more expendable."

That's the balance issue I always had with Classed NPCs especially if they are actually supposed to fulfill a function of protection.

And now you made the first mistake of assuming equal resources. Just because NPCs are open to class levels and features doesn't mean they have the same power, privilege, access, desire, or capacity to carry it out. Civilization has its own maintenance costs. Not everyone can pursue to solve everything altogether all the time, hence the magic of division of labor.

And instead of limiting the campaign I find it frees things up. Instead of being "another band of mercs out for fortune and glory" you are open to pursue your own journey. That allows more low-concept pursuits -- open to character execution -- after whatever pitch was offered. There's less pressure to 'save the day' or 'set the world to rights' because you're not the only hero and there's other hooks to do.

In the end I find the nature of the campaign becomes more about exploring a fictional universe and finding one's place in it. In practice it seems more fun than having that handed to you from the beginning. It lets some really cool play shine through, but admittedly works best with pro-active players (but what doesn't?).

I think its great that Hasbro/WOTC came down on the side of generous.

This also might help them get a leg up on Pathfinder as well and it seems well thought out.

I'm looking forward to seeing what it will bring since I like 5e and it feels better in actual play than Pathfinder YMMV of course,

An OBS designer over on RPGG had some thoughts on it.

Quote3. The 50% cut is ridiculous. However, DTRPG already charges about a 40% cut for non-exclusive publishers who joined after a certain date. My own publisher contract entitles me to 35%.

DTRPG charges a 35% commission for exclusive publishers, which is to say for anyone who agrees to carry their PDFs only on DTRPG. For some older publishers that exclusive contract is 30% instead.

What this means is that OneBookShelf is charging about a 15% increase on its royalty for exclusive publishing rights. Presumably WOTC is getting a percentage of that. It's highway robbery, but when you add middlemen you always wind up having more people to pay.

Even at 50%, it's still better than some charges for selling through Amazon's Kindle program. IIRC, they charge 65% to be in "expanded distribution" (sell through multiple partners) and 40% to sell through Amazon directly. (It's been a while since I've looked at these numbers.)
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As for the notion that your content could potentially be used for official products? That's all well and good but it's kind of a pipe dream. It's a common tactic of vanity presses -- and let's face it, this is exactly what that is -- to offer you a shot at getting "picked up" by the publisher. It's a way to entice people to your platform with no guarantee and no liability.

Does OBS really take 30-40%?

I agree though that the idea the DM Guild will allow you a chance to get added to the official works is pretty much a pipe dream. But its still a venue to get a more official look and access. Who knows what may come of it?

But even in so short a time theres a fair amount of dross being put up if my last glance at was any indicator.

In a vanity press setup, you pay the press to publish your book. This is not a vanity press.