TheRPGSite

This came to me whilst I was reading the FH&W thread: has anyone producing retro-clone material ever had any heat whatsoever from Hasbro or Wizards?

Because I've never heard of any. No threatening letters, no lawsuits, nothing. I know retro-clone publishers use the OGL as the legal basis for what they do but when you look at the sheer range of products being cranked out there must be someone flouting important provisions of the licence, either deliberately or because they misinterpreted its provisions. And yet, nada.

For that matter, have they ever slapped down a publisher for failure to abide by the OGL, D20 licence, or the GSL? I know they didn't come after 4E Kingdoms of Kalamar, despite it not coming under the GSL, though given that Dave Kenzer is an IP attorney in his day job he probably did a decent enough job of skirting the line to make any case tenuous, and I'm pretty sure not every publisher had the benefit of having their own in-house lawyer.

I have not heard of any. But it is very possible it has happened and I just havent heard of it.

I know Hasbro has gone after bootlegs before. One publisher got hit for 1 mil in fines. Probably others out there. But those are not retro clones.

I know there are a few out there that SHOULD be shut down. but seems so far no one has acted.

Didn't Guardians of Order have to pulp/withdraw some books, or did i dream it?

Considering the ill luck GOO had back then. Probably yes.

GOO relied heavily on licensed properties - a strategy which, as with West End Games and others before them, would turn around and bite them in the ass - so whilst I do remember GOO having to trash some books, I don't recall whether this was due to D20 licensing issues or rights issues with the properties they'd made games for.

I experienced a 'concerned citizen' complaint over H&H's first printing, but other than that I've certainly never heard anything official.

I think until very recently WOTC probably didn't think any of it was relevant.

I know of one off the top of my head but I'm not at liberty to say...

The author of Squadron UK received, as far as I know, a C&D for the game based on Golden Heroes, so he rewrote and re-issued it so as to be able to sell it without problems.

The author of the retro clone of GH hasn't (as far as I know) heard anything from GW's lawyers.

Difference between the two is that Squadron UK was for sale, Codename:Spandex is free.

The Marvel Superheroes PDFs have been available - free - for all for years and still remain so. Either WOTC or Marvel don't know about them or think it's not worth their while to chase the site down.

With these companies I expect they'd look at what it is - a few hundred RPG players across the world keeping out of print games available as opposed to something they could be making thousands/millions of dollars from.

I would expect a smaller company to be more vigorous in their attempts to protect their games, but Flying Buffalo hasn't stopped someone from flogging their stuff without permission because they can't or the legal costs aren't worth it, I guess. Doesn't make it any less shitty what's happened there.

Quote from: Warthur;740022Because I've never heard of any. No threatening letters, no lawsuits, nothing. I know retro-clone publishers use the OGL as the legal basis for what they do but when you look at the sheer range of products being cranked out there must be someone flouting important provisions of the licence, either deliberately or because they misinterpreted its provisions. And yet, nada.

I haven't personally heard of anything. My opinion we been lucky for the following reason.

1) OSRIC took lot of heat when first released. A LOT of heat. But if they were contacted officially they effectively handled it and I believe there were IP lawyers on the design team.. OSRIC was deliberately designed to be as close as the line possible.  As such it is a sort of benchmark of how far you can go. Most of the retro-clone I read to back off further than OSRIC.

2) The d20 SRD without feats, skills, etc cover a hell of lot that went into classic D&D. Necromancer Games' Tome of Horrors plugs some of the gaps in the monster list to the point that 95% of what you need for a retro-clone is clearly under the OGL.

3) The early OSR community talked a lot among each other and the major editions were quickly covered by various retro-clones. There was strong peer pressure not to piss of Wizards and kill the goose the lays the golden eggs. Subsequent clones tend to have more original content or focus on specific fantasy themes.

Despite the stereotype most of the OSR don't truly want to rehash old material over and over again. Once the basics were covered most of the community got into making their own stuff. Many focusing on variations of various themes and tropes that make up classic D&D.

4) People were aware of the handful of violations during the d20 boom. Particularly with James Ward's company Fast Forward Entertainment improperly using non-open content.


5) The OSR "boom" is no where near as large the d20 boom. It not surprisingly that TheDungeonDelver only mentions one that he knew about. Despite all the products released during the d20 Boom the number of violations was a low percentage.

In the final analysis, it may be a problem with some idiot in the future but has not been for now.

Quote from: estar;740110I haven't personally heard of anything. My opinion we been lucky for the following reason.

1) OSRIC took lot of heat when first released. A LOT of heat. But if they were contacted officially they effectively handled it and I believe there were IP lawyers on the design team.. OSRIC was deliberately designed to be as close as the line possible.  As such it is a sort of benchmark of how far you can go. Most of the retro-clone I read to back off further than OSRIC.

Much of the "heat" that OSRIC took was, in fact, a lie started by people (whom I could name, but honestly the designers of OSRIC were right and the detractors and rumormongers were wrong and it's water under the drawbridge) who realized what OSRIC was going to do to the hobby (put AD&D as open-source), and render "looks like, but isn't really" types of games unnecessary.  That was a sad uninformed opinion and shows a lack of faith in the rest of the hobby's little niches.  For example people who wanted C&C got C&C.  People who wanted Hackmaster, got Hackmaster.  Etc.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740118Much of the "heat" that OSRIC took was, in fact, a lie started by people (whom I could name, but honestly the designers of OSRIC were right and the detractors and rumormongers were wrong and it's water under the drawbridge) who realized what OSRIC was going to do to the hobby (put AD&D as open-source), and render "looks like, but isn't really" types of games unnecessary.  That was a sad uninformed opinion and shows a lack of faith in the rest of the hobby's little niches.  For example people who wanted C&C got C&C.  People who wanted Hackmaster, got Hackmaster.  Etc.

So wait OSRIC is completely open source?

Quote from: Snowman0147;740120So wait OSRIC is completely open source?

Pretty much has to be.  Sort of the entire point of it.  I mean, you can't just cut and paste; that's still under basic copyright protection.  But OSRIC can't very well say, "We just copied AD&D essentially, but you can't copy us!"

Quote from: Sacrosanct;740126Pretty much has to be.  Sort of the entire point of it.  I mean, you can't just cut and paste; that's still under basic copyright protection.  But OSRIC can't very well say, "We just copied AD&D essentially, but you can't copy us!"

   In addition, by the terms of the OGL, anything designated OGC or derived from OGC material must be made and remain open content in perpetuity. I suspect this is one of the key reasons why one of Dancey's dreams for the OGL--get all the other companies to experiment, then fold the best ideas into the next edition of D&D--didn't materialize.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740118Much of the "heat" that OSRIC took was, in fact, a lie started by people (whom I could name, but honestly the designers of OSRIC were right and the detractors and rumormongers were wrong and it's water under the drawbridge) who realized what OSRIC was going to do to the hobby (put AD&D as open-source), and render "looks like, but isn't really" types of games unnecessary.  That was a sad uninformed opinion and shows a lack of faith in the rest of the hobby's little niches.  For example people who wanted C&C got C&C.  People who wanted Hackmaster, got Hackmaster.  Etc.

I'm not sure it was deliberate lying, per se.  The biggest critics I saw of OSRIC were Clark Peterson of Necromancer games, and the Troll Lords.  However, in both cases, both men had legal advice (CP is an attorney, and Steve was married to one), and this kind of stuff was so new that nobody really knew what WoTC would do.  Realistically, the SAFER option is to copy less instead of copying more.  At the time, I do think their cautions was justified, and people who think they were deliberately trying to sabotage OSRIC were being paranoid.

But in the end, it turns out WoTC left it alone.  I suspect they probably see the retro-clones akin to "fan fiction", like some of the bigger companies treat web-published fan stories about literary properties.  They probably don't see it as a big enough threat to them.

Quote from: JRT;740142I'm not sure it was deliberate lying, per se.  The biggest critics I saw of OSRIC were Clark Peterson of Necromancer games, and the Troll Lords.  However, in both cases, both men had legal advice (CP is an attorney, and Steve was married to one), and this kind of stuff was so new that nobody really knew what WoTC would do.  Realistically, the SAFER option is to copy less instead of copying more.  At the time, I do think their cautions was justified, and people who think they were deliberately trying to sabotage OSRIC were being paranoid.

What's the card you like to play so often, John?  "I was there, you weren't"?

I was, and you weren't.  

There was at least one person who started a whisper campaign about OSRIC to try and have it buried.  Another individual who will go nameless crowed about how he'd "notified Wizards" of OSRIC's "copyright infringement" to have it taken down.

So don't talk about things you don't know.*


...


*=this has never dissuaded you in the past, so, I guess you won't stop now.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;740143What's the card you like to play so often, John?  "I was there, you weren't"?

I was, and you weren't.  

There was at least one person who started a whisper campaign about OSRIC to try and have it buried.  Another individual who will go nameless crowed about how he'd "notified Wizards" of OSRIC's "copyright infringement" to have it taken down.

So don't talk about things you don't know.*


...


*=this has never dissuaded you in the past, so, I guess you won't stop now.

Don't be a douchebag.  If you're not speaking about Peterson or the Trolls, just say so.

Beats me, but if I was Hasbro's corporate counsel, I'd make sure there was a gag clause written into any such action.

We're talking a multi-BILLION dollar company, after all.  I expect the annual budget of their legal department is equal to the annual net revenue of the whole non-D&D RPG industry combined.

Quote from: JRT;740144Don't be a douchebag.  If you're not speaking about Peterson or the Trolls, just say so.

Why?  The point is to answer the OP and give some context, but also not reopen an old flame war.  Bottom line, anyone who decides to comment on the legality, publicly, of a game they didn't write or own, doesn't do so out of some general theoretical interest.  And to ignore that other game systems were, at that time, presenting themselves as the closest you can legally get to 1E AD&D, as not having any commercial motive in their issuance of opinion, is naïve.

Quote from: Snowman0147;740120So wait OSRIC is completely open source?

OSRIC is under the Open Gaming License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game_License). And has some content declared open and other content declared product identity.

It includes the following

QuoteThe terms "OSRIC," "OSRIC," and "O .S .R .I .C ." are Product Identity and trademarks; all artwork and formatting is Product Identity . The Variable \t Point Rule on p .118 is Product Identity . Aside from the previous two sentences, Chapters I, II and III of this work are Open Game Content . Chapters IV, V and VI are Product Identity to the extent permitted under the OGL and to the extent such material is subject to copyright, except for any text language derived from the SRD or the Tome of Horrors, which is Open Game Content

CHAPTER I: CREATING A CHARACTER
CHAPTER II: SPELLS
CHAPTER III: HOW TO PLAY THE FIRST TIME
CHAPTER IV: DUNGEONS, TOWNS AND WILDERNESSES
CHAPTER V: MONSTERS
CHAPTER VI: TREASURE

I dislike the declaration of product identity for OSRIC. I understand the intent, I just don't agree with it. I think the OSRIC's team reason for structuring it this way is overly paranoid and hampers the adoption of OSRIC by other OSR publishers for anything except adventures and settings. As much as I like talking to the folks over on Knights and Knaves they are much too concerned with keeping a pristine AD&D 1st edition intact.

The reality is that people don't give a shit enough to try to co-opt any particular retro-clone. If they are going to mess around with first edition, they will just replicate the process of OSRIC and create their own. Which is what precisely what happened with Advanced Edition companion and Adventure Dark & Deep. The open content of OSRIC is half damaged for reuse and the community routed around it.

And I emphasis that today, 2014, IT NOT A BIG DEAL. Why? Because of the wealth of clones, supplements, etc for a newcomer to draw from for their own works. And the differences between various editions of classic D&D is one of inches not the yawning gulf that exists between truly different rule systems.

Quote from: JRT;740142Realistically, the SAFER option is to copy less instead of copying more.  At the time, I do think their cautions was justified, and people who think they were deliberately trying to sabotage OSRIC were being paranoid.

Do be fair Clark was little more than vehement about the issue. And OSRIC was born of a dispute between the group and Troll Lords to begin with so there are some personal issues going on there.

And the lot at Knights and Knave can be prickly.

I will also add that IP Lawyers are very conservative when it comes to this kind of stuff. When I took my Judges Guild license agreement to my IP lawyer it was an interesting experience to say the least.

Quote from: EOTB;740148Why?  The point is to answer the OP and give some context, but also not reopen an old flame war.

That comment was me more or less needling Bill back because he needled me--I wasn't seriously asking him to name names or out anybody.

Quote from: EOTB;740148Bottom line, anyone who decides to comment on the legality, publicly, of a game they didn't write or own, doesn't do so out of some general theoretical interest.  And to ignore that other game systems were, at that time, presenting themselves as the closest you can legally get to 1E AD&D as having any commercial motive is naïve.

Actually, to be honest, they do, all the time.  People comment on message boards--there were whole mailing lists about the OGL, and if you ever looked at ENWorld and other forums or the hundreds of blogs out there the copyright threads and discussions about what you can and can't do legally, there's a whole slew of threads on this.  This whole thread is kind of proof of that.

Is it possible there were ulterior motives?  Perhaps?  But is it also possible they had legitimate concerns?  Perhaps as well.

QuoteActually, to be honest, they do, all the time. People comment on message boards--there were whole mailing lists about the OGL, and if you ever looked at ENWorld and other forums or the hundreds of blogs out there the copyright threads and discussions about what you can and can't do legally, there's a whole slew of threads on this. This whole thread is kind of proof of that.

Is it possible there were ulterior motives? Perhaps? But is it also possible they had legitimate concerns? Perhaps as well.

I don't even think that compares.  There's a vast gulf between a member of the general gaming community commenting on it - largely because that's for their own interest, and nobody really gives a shit what Joe Blow Gamer #32 cares about the legality of a given game - and the owners of game companies broadcasting their opinions, who were making money by trumpeting that they were the closest thing to "old school" a gamer could get at the time.

Quote from: estar;740151I will also add that IP Lawyers are very conservative when it comes to this kind of stuff. When I took my Judges Guild license agreement to my IP lawyer it was an interesting experience to say the least.

True.  I think part of the problem was OSRIC had different goals--it wanted to be as close to AD&D as possible as legally as they could get away with, since it was released as a free document and was more concerned with AD&D for all, while the others were more interested in a fundamental business model, which meant taking a more conservative approach.  I guess in the end that conservatism turned out to be for nothing.

I was vocally critical of OSRIC. I thought that the slavishness of the retro-clone concept wasn't helpful in expanding the hobby. AD&D has a lot of flaws and gameplay assumptions born in the 1970s that don't have the same validity today. That's why I prefer Swords & Wizardry.

Also, I was critical of using the OGL to fuck IP holders. Sure, I love Mutant Future, but let's not mince the truth here. OSRIC fucked WotC in the asshole and of course Paizo cored out WotC's entire rectum so bad that D&D will never be able to stand up again. 13th Age is just spanking it to the corpse.

The OSR, while good for a small niche of hobbyists, isn't doing the actual IP holders any favors. Copyright law is a mess and needs an overhaul, but the concept and defense of limited copyright has tremendous value in a civilized society.

Quote from: J Arcane;740029I experienced a 'concerned citizen' complaint over H&H's first printing, but other than that I've certainly never heard anything official.

What's a concerned citizen complaint???

Quote from: estar;740151And the lot at Knights and Knave can be prickly.

They're the Tangency Trolls of the OSR.

Quote from: estar;740151I will also add that IP Lawyers are very conservative when it comes to this kind of stuff.

I think they have to be since the penalty for when the shit hits the fan can be tremendous if the judge agrees with the other side.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740160What's a concerned citizen complaint???

Someone contacted me privately that they were 'concerned' about my use of THAC0 as a term and my failure to cite a specific edition of the SRD in the OGL, despite the fact that it's a ground up rewrite with nothing copyrightable in common.

Rather than risk said individual run it further up the flagpole on their own, what with my legal budget being a handful of pennies at the bottom of my jacket pocket, I pulled the release PDF and re-issued it. Cost me a full two weeks of revenue.

And that's why H&H uses TAAC0, and why the OGL refers to an SRD from which it contains basically nothing but the stat names.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740160What's a concerned citizen complaint???

There are people who think it is their place to police others in terms of the copyrights of another party.  So they will do things like decide your game is too similar to another and then try to report you to whomever they can.  For example, if you sell things on rpgnow, they'll put in a claim that your work is a violation of copyright.  Or maybe they'll try to get your book pulled off of lulu so no one can get it.

Basically they nominate themselves as copyright enforcers for copyright material they have no rights to at all.

Quote from: J Arcane;740174Someone contacted me privately that they were 'concerned' about my use of THAC0 as a term and my failure to cite a specific edition of the SRD in the OGL, despite the fact that it's a ground up rewrite with nothing copyrightable in common.

Rather than risk said individual run it further up the flagpole on their own, what with my legal budget being a handful of pennies at the bottom of my jacket pocket, I pulled the release PDF and re-issued it. Cost me a full two weeks of revenue.

And that's why H&H uses TAAC0, and why the OGL refers to an SRD from which it contains basically nothing but the stat names.

I had the exact same email when I did Westwater when I used "THAC0".  I wonder if it was from the same person.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740160OSRIC fucked WotC in the asshole and of course Paizo cored out WotC's entire rectum so bad that D&D will never be able to stand up again. 13th Age is just spanking it to the corpse.

To be fair, by releasing such a permissive license, WoTC basically did most of this to themselves.  I have to wonder if there will be a case study 20 years from now on this taught in business schools.  

Quote from: NathanIW;740175There are people who think it is their place to police others in terms of the copyrights of another party.  So they will do things like decide your game is too similar to another and then try to report you to whomever they can.  For example, if you sell things on rpgnow, they'll put in a claim that your work is a violation of copyright.  Or maybe they'll try to get your book pulled off of lulu so no one can get it.

Basically they nominate themselves as copyright enforcers for copyright material they have no rights to at all.

I think it's okay if a person wants to report a suspected copyright infringement to the owners, or a massive pirate site on the internet to the authorities.  But people shouldn't take it upon themselves to file a violation notice to a host themselves.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740160Also, I was critical of using the OGL to fuck IP holders.

Except that publishing a retro-clone using the OGL explicitly *doesn't* fuck IP holders, because if it's done right it doesn't use any protected or reserved IP, it only uses what *isn't* protected IP and what has been expressly permitted per the license.  That's kinda the whole point.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740160I was vocally critical of OSRIC. I thought that the slavishness of the retro-clone concept wasn't helpful in expanding the hobby. AD&D has a lot of flaws and gameplay assumptions born in the 1970s that don't have the same validity today. That's why I prefer Swords & Wizardry.

OSRIC expands the hobby for those who desire new material for first edition AD&D. It perhaps doesn't expands it the way you want it but that the advantages of open license. The user decides what important to produce not the creator of the IP.

You of course are perfectly free to show how it being done wrong by creating your own work.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740160Also, I was critical of using the OGL to fuck IP holders. Sure, I love Mutant Future, but let's not mince the truth here. OSRIC fucked WotC in the asshole and of course Paizo cored out WotC's entire rectum so bad that D&D will never be able to stand up again. 13th Age is just spanking it to the corpse.

Nobody held a gun to Wizard's head to release the d20 SRD under the Open Game License. Dancey, Atkinson, and the rest knew the implications of what they were doing.

Wizards has only Wizards themselves to blame. The difference the fact the d20 SRD was under the OGL meant the 3.5e didn't have to take it in the ass and found somebody else to give their business.

The same with classic D&D when people realized that if you opt NOT to play with feats, the newer classes, skills, what was left was very similar to older editions.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740160The OSR, while good for a small niche of hobbyists, isn't doing the actual IP holders any favors. Copyright law is a mess and needs an overhaul, but the concept and defense of limited copyright has tremendous value in a civilized society.

The only thing that copyright needs a shorter term. Let be as strong as it needs to be during the life of the grant. But make limited time really mean limited time. In my view 28 years plus 28 years with an explicit renewal is far more than sufficient.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740160They're the Tangency Trolls of the OSR.

No they are not, the only issue iwhen it comes with AD&D that they are prickly. Nothing more and nothing less.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740160I think they have to be since the penalty for when the shit hits the fan can be tremendous if the judge agrees with the other side.

There was some of that, but mostly I had to explain why I didn't need all the boilerplate he was suggesting to "protect" my ip. I finely got through to him that in except for royalties, I was being allowed to use something elses IP.

I'm only aware of only two instances for certain. An assistant (or vice?) brand manager from WotC contacted Stuart about OSRIC immediately, asking him to take it down while they discussed WotC's concerns. Stuart said no, and there were a couple more emails exchanged, with WotC eventually ceasing to reply in the exchange.

The other instance is different, since it didn't have to do with a retroclone, and it had to do with trademark rather than copyright law. Outside counsel for WotC sent a real C&D letter to an artist who was offering stock art of a creature that looked a bit like a beholder.

I've heard rumors of other contacts, but they have all been secondhand, or not clear if it was actually WotC, etc. WotC's current legal posture on copyright seems to be very open and permissive. Whether that will still be true in 10-20 years, of course, isn't clear.

Hope that's helpful!

Quote from: Mythmere;740230The other instance is different, since it didn't have to do with a retroclone, and it had to do with trademark rather than copyright law. Outside counsel for WotC sent a real C&D letter to an artist who was offering stock art of a creature that looked a bit like a beholder.

I think that case would ultimately under Copyright though.  From what I've seen, WoTC has never trademarked the term "Beholder", at least in the USPTO database.  Visual images and depictions can come under copyright, for instance.  Unless they are just claiming a common law trademark on the visual image--they could do both, but the former would probably apply unless the beholder was actually used in trade...

Well, chaps and chapesses, here's the sequence of events with OSRIC.

1.  It was published, with me accepting legal responsibility for it.
2.  There was a massive thread, and then several other massive threads.  A lot of people got their opinions out and waved them around.
3.  Clark Peterson gave his famous opinion.  Clark's an IP lawyer, but he hadn't spoken to me and (clearly) I wasn't his client.  I do not for one moment believe that Clark Peterson was trying to kill off a business competitor in that way.  I do believe that he wasn't in possession of all the facts.

The important facts that he did not possess at that time were:
(a) my bizarre and unaccountable failure to be an American; and
(b) WOTC's lawyers' failure specify which law applies to the OGL.

In other words, WOTC couldn't sue me in an American court.  US IP law is about as relevant to me as the law of Timbuktoo.  Hang on to that fact, because it's important in making sense of what happened next.

4.  A person unknown referred OSRIC to WOTC's brand manager.    I say "person unknown", but he may not be totally unconnected with a person who wrote on Dragonsfoot that he was going to refer OSRIC to WOTC... that's okay, the concept of a retro-clone was always going to attract WOTC's attention.  We expected this.
5.  WOTC's then brand manager wrote a very polite and respectful email to me saying that his licencees were concerned and asking me to cease distribution of OSRIC.
6.  I corresponded with WOTC's brand manager.  He's a veteran, so I was as polite and respectful to him as he was to me.  (I can be nice.  Occasionally.)  WOTC's guy said some things about WOTC's IP that I found very surprising and remarkable, and I often wish I could bring them out in discussions like this because they would be really illuminating for you all.  But I think that in all the circumstances it's right to keep the details under my hat.  All I feel able to tell you is that more than one of the perfectly reasonable assumptions people on the internet make about WOTC's IP and brand management are dead wrong.
7.  I said to WOTC's brand manager that I didn't think we were going to agree and could he please get WOTC's lawyers to email me directly.  He said he would do that, and that's the last I heard.  This was in midsummer of 2006.
8.  Dan Proctor and I get on very well and have a relationship of trust.  I gave him all the gory details on all this (including key elements of the non-public stuff) at around the time he released Labyrinth Lord.

Moving from facts to my opinion:-  I think that WOTC's lawyers figured out that they can't do much to me in the Law of England and Wales given the representations and commitments they've made.  And I think their business management people may have decided that if the retro-clone cat was going to get out of the bag, then it should be out of the bag for Americans too, and they would treat the OGL/SRD as a lost cause for their ownership.  I think this was the right call.

Other points from this thread that I'd like to address are:-

a) K&KA is, as Spinachcat says, a foul and evil den of iniquity that's exactly like Tangency on the Big Purple.  People like Spinachcat should definitely stay here where it's nice and safe.
b) OSRIC isn't ever going to be open source.  The point of OSRIC is (1) to make the 1e system available to anyone who wants to publish for it and (2) to kill off attempts by commercial entities to get a stranglehold on the "closest successor to the game Gary Gygax wrote" market.  It can only achieve these things by doing the most accurate job possible of replicating the non-copyrightable elements of 1e, giving the rules away for free, selling print rulebooks at prices for-profits couldn't match, and using the Product Identity rules to stop people rebranding it for their own purposes.

I realise this is a pain in the neck for reusers, but I'm afraid OSRIC isn't aimed at reusers.  LL/AEC is thataway --->

Quote from: estar;740110I haven't personally heard of anything. My opinion we been lucky for the following reason.

1) OSRIC took lot of heat when first released. A LOT of heat. But if they were contacted officially they effectively handled it and I believe there were IP lawyers on the design team.. OSRIC was deliberately designed to be as close as the line possible.  As such it is a sort of benchmark of how far you can go. Most of the retro-clone I read to back off further than OSRIC.

Not in the design team, but AIR from talking with him (I'm a UK academic IP & contract lawyer, so I'm interested in this stuff) before publishing the UK-based lead author & publisher Stuart Marshall had paid for legal advice from a UK law firm, and in case of dispute they were already contracted to represent him on a no-win no-fee basis. ie OSRIC was lawyered up and ready to fight from the start, if necessary. He was emailed by a WoTC non-legal staffer who objected to what he was doing "this can't be legal!", but the staffer then went off to speak with Hasbro legal, and Stuart never heard anything more from WoTC. No attempt at a C&D letter etc.
So it looks like this established a precedent: where there is no breach of trade marks, and no clear breach of the OGL (eg including Product Identity in your product) Hasbro Legal will be quiescent. This makes good sense from their POV. My fellow law academic Pemerton has pointed out to me a couple elements in OSRIC where you might be able to make a case for copyright infringement despite the OGL, but it's very de minimis stuff - the number of gnolls appearing in their lairs and such seems derived from the 1e MM, and you could maybe make a technical case for derivative* work, but extracting non-OGL from OGL elements and establishing there was substantial infringement would be nightmarishly hard, for little benefit. In multi million dollar infringement cases you might hire a specialist law firm and go to town, but even they might not want to touch it due to the difficulties around the OGL. And because game mechanics are not protected, games companies like Hasbro generally shy away from the possibility of court judgements that may establish just how little protection they have for their games - you could theoretically publish a game that uses AD&D's mechanics even without the OGL.

edit: Ninja'd by P&P himself. :)

*UK copyright law does not have 'derivative work', it has 'adaptation' which is similar but narrower. Both UK & US allow for non-literal copyright infringement. UK law generally lacks US punitive damages. In case of blatant infringement (eg piracy) a UK court may grant an injunction against continued publication of the infringing work, but it's 99.9% likely they would not do so for anything I've seen in OSRIC.  
The kind of result I'd expect to see, if Hasbro spent a big chunk of money suing in a UK court, and did as well as could reasonably be expected, might be something like:
"OK, elements x y an z are infringing, but de minimis. You have not shown any loss. You receive nominal damages, £1 to the claimant. Respondent's costs are awarded against the claimant."
Hasbro then get stuck having to pay Marshall's lawyers' legal bill. And it could go worse than that - a judge might not be satisfied that any infringement occurred. And there might be a clear statement on the non-protectability of games mechanics, costing Hasbro and other games manufacturers lots and lots of money.

I just want to confirm that S'mon has his facts straight and his view broadly aligns with the advice I've received.  The solicitor I consulted said the case "presents interesting complexities" but went on to mention that she "would not wish to act for the other side".

Matt Finch once remarked that if the copyrightability of game mechanics came to Court, he'd expect it to attract interest from the legal departments of computer game manufacturers, who have deep pockets and an obvious interest in the copyrightability of game engines.  I'm sure Matt's right.

QuoteOSRIC isn't ever going to be open source. The point of OSRIC is (1) to make the 1e system available to anyone who wants to publish for it and (2) to kill off attempts by commercial entities to get a stranglehold on the "closest successor to the game Gary Gygax wrote" market. It can only achieve these things by doing the most accurate job possible of replicating the non-copyrightable elements of 1e, giving the rules away for free, selling print rulebooks at prices for-profits couldn't match, and using the Product Identity rules to stop people rebranding it for their own purposes.

By "open source", that's what I meant.  (Technically it isn't a term applicable since there's no source code).  But your intent was to be a disruptive non-commercial force in the market.  

Personally, I think the big legal precedent about cloning Tabletop RPGs will come not from D&D since they opened themselves up long ago to this, but from somebody who tries to clone a game very closely and release it under and OGL/Creative Commons license where the game was never released under those types of terms.  I suspect it will come by some creative type who would fight on the principle of the matter.

I also think perhaps Hasbro had a different take on games from a legal perspective because as a big game manufacturer they've probably ended up being on the other side of cloning games, and might be more tolerant of it than the narrower view of Tabletop RPGs.  They have gone after clones like Scrabulous but that appears to be more based on how close it was to the original (and the near-name match), since they dropped that lawsuit after the name was changed.

Quote from: JRT;740308By "open source", that's what I meant.  (Technically it isn't a term applicable since there's no source code).  But your intent was to be a disruptive non-commercial force in the market.  

Personally, I think the big legal precedent about cloning Tabletop RPGs will come not from D&D since they opened themselves up long ago to this, but from somebody who tries to clone a game very closely and release it under and OGL/Creative Commons license where the game was never released under those types of terms.  I suspect it will come by some creative type who would fight on the principle of the matter.

Well, there's been a few of those now, but most all of them have been of OOP systems with minimal interest from the IP holder.

The biggest profile game I know of that's been cloned is Marvel Super Heroes, and considering the IP holder is still letting that one's original be given away for free, and not a soul seems to have actually used 4C for anything. So no one's made a peep.

Someone did mention the Squadron UK situation though, and that apparently did get ugly, though now there's yet another clone of it that so far has gone unnoticed, though this is likely because it deliberately avoids even crediting anything in the original. Also because the entire thing is layed out in Comic Sans. So again, low visibility targets.

I've been debating cloning DCH/MEGS for years, but the table is kind of a stumbling block there because it's bespoke enough to be non-obvious, so I fear replicating it exactly would definitely be actionable, and there's a contentious history with the system's previous licensing situation. I think you could change the die mechanic and rebuild the table though, and still keep compatibility, as long as everything else was kosher on the copyright front.

Quote from: JRT;740308I also think perhaps Hasbro had a different take on games from a legal perspective because as a big game manufacturer they've probably ended up being on the other side of cloning games, and might be more tolerant of it than the narrower view of Tabletop RPGs.  They have gone after clones like Scrabulous but that appears to be more based on how close it was to the original (and the near-name match), since they dropped that lawsuit after the name was changed.

More than copyright, companies don't want their brand name diluted or confused. Often something is fine under copyright law but if it winds up causing confusion over whether it is an "official" product then the author/publisher will likely face legal action by the original company. And the chances are that the original company is prevail as this protection is one of the foundations of modern commercial law.

And it makes sense morally. If you put a lot into promoting and building the reputation of JRT Games & Hobbies only for somebody to adopt a similar (but not the same log) and call themselves JRC Games & Hobbies. People would be confused as to which is which. And if the people behind JRC put a shoddy product or provide bad service it will unfairly reflect on you.

Quote from: JRT;740232I think that case would ultimately under Copyright though.  From what I've seen, WoTC has never trademarked the term "Beholder", at least in the USPTO database.

I thought it was done by TSR?

Quote from: P&P;7402396.  I corresponded with WOTC's brand manager.  He's a veteran, so I was as polite and respectful to him as he was to me.  (I can be nice.  Occasionally.)  WOTC's guy said some things about WOTC's IP that I found very surprising and remarkable, and I often wish I could bring them out in discussions like this because they would be really illuminating for you all.

Heh, as an IP lawyer myself I can imagine. Clients have an incredible ability (even large ones) to overestimate the extent and potency of their IP portfolio.

Were I one of WotC's attorneys I'd have been aghast that the brand manager was getting into this discussion with you on that level of detail without keeping the legal people in the loop, because the damage that can be done by an uninformed (or, worse, semi-informed) person running their mouth off about their IP rights can be startling.

Quote from: Mistwell;740318I thought it was done by TSR?

There are few live or dead trademarks for any term containing Beholder, none of them being registered for either or dealing with the Eye Tyrant.  

I was surprised they or SSI never Trademarked the term Eye of the Beholder for the computer game.

Quote from: P&P;740239a) K&KA is, as Spinachcat says, a foul and evil den of iniquity that's exactly like Tangency on the Big Purple.  People like Spinachcat should definitely stay here where it's nice and safe.

I see what you did there.

Quote from: P&P;740239I realise this is a pain in the neck for reusers, but I'm afraid OSRIC isn't aimed at reusers.  LL/AEC is thataway --->

While I am a advocate of open gaming I strongly defend the right of authors to release their material on the terms of they want. Which is I why I haven't raised much of a stink about it.

Likewise I strongly feel that the half open nature of OSRIC is utterly contrary to the spirit of open gaming.  That it unfairly takes advantage to push it own agenda. While you and the team have the right to do what you did it doesn't make it the right way to proceed.

However, I also admit it hasn't had that big of impact either. According to Hordes and Hordes there are 93 Swords & Wizardry products, 138 Labyrinth Lord products, and 132 OSRIC products.

Like all such things, the community didn't do what anyone of us expected. Most of the people that had a strong vision just went out and wrote their own thing. (Adventure Dark and Deep, Lamentation of the Flame Princess, Blood & Treasure, Adventure, Conqueror, King, etc). The rest just used their edition/clone of choice.

So while I have my opinion on the subject it just not that big of deal in 2014. The OSR has grown so diverse, that no one clone, individual, or company is a gatekeepr, or block on the path from anybody with the drive to do what, within reason and the law,  they want with a classic edition.

Quote from: J Arcane;740310I've been debating cloning DCH/MEGS for years, but the table is kind of a stumbling block there because it's bespoke enough to be non-obvious, so I fear replicating it exactly would definitely be actionable, and there's a contentious history with the system's previous licensing situation. I think you could change the die mechanic and rebuild the table though, and still keep compatibility, as long as everything else was kosher on the copyright front.

I have a feeling you would have to change it up (the table, etc.) so much that it wouldn't quite be a "retro-clone" any longer.

Also, I'm sure others have thought about cloning it but perhaps they weren't sure they wanted to test Time Warner's lawyers.

Quote from: Endless Flight;740336I have a feeling you would have to change it up (the table, etc.) so much that it wouldn't quite be a "retro-clone" any longer.

Also, I'm sure others have thought about cloning it but perhaps they weren't sure they wanted to test Time Warner's lawyers.

I don't think you'd have to actually change that much to make it unrecognizable for copyright purposes. Change the stat names if you're going to be cautious, and obviously do the power list from scratch. Even the table is solvable: switch the die type. Change out the 2d10 for a 2d6 or 2d8 or something, and all the numbers will have to be redone anyway, and that's the only part of it that's copyrightable.

Remember, mechanics fall under patent, not copyright, and even patent is tough to get for that kinda thing and expires much more quickly. The idea of a lookup table isn't the problem, it's getting the same basic feel and results with a new table that's the tricky part.

In most jurisdictions game mechanics aren't even patentable.

Quote from: Mistwell;740318I thought it was done by TSR?

If they would trademark Nazi (TM) then anything is fair game I guess. :rolleyes:

Quote from: estar;740321The OSR has grown so diverse, that no one clone, individual, or company is a gatekeepr, or block on the path from anybody with the drive to do what, within reason and the law,  they want with a classic edition.

Thus the OGL has done the job that it was supposed to do. :)

Quote from: Exploderwizard;740356If they would trademark Nazi (TM) then anything is fair game I guess. :rolleyes:

That was more or less Lucasfilm.

http://seankreynolds.livejournal.com/50079.html

An informative thread, even if a bit like a strip club - all that teasing ("I know those guys"; "Information I'd like to keep under my hat") and no score.

Quote from: JRT;740308They have gone after clones like Scrabulous but that appears to be more based on how close it was to the original (and the near-name match), since they dropped that lawsuit after the name was changed.

Seems purely a trade mark issue - Scrabulous looks like Scrabble. Similar mark for nearly-identical goods.

Quote from: estar;740321The rest just used their edition/clone of choice.

Personally I'm using OSRIC to run Rise of the Runelords right now. Just GM'd the 4th session tonight, and it's awesome. :D

Quote from: Exploderwizard;740356If they would trademark Nazi (TM) then anything is fair game I guess. :rolleyes:

That was forced on them by Lucas Films Ltd. Nazi (TM & C LFL 1984).

Quote from: P&P;740239(a) my bizarre and unaccountable failure to be an American

You sick bastard.

(MEGS being my favorite supers system, I have an opinion here and feel compelled to share it.)

Quote from: Endless Flight;740336I have a feeling you would have to change it up (the table, etc.) so much that it wouldn't quite be a "retro-clone" any longer.

Also, I'm sure others have thought about cloning it but perhaps they weren't sure they wanted to test Time Warner's lawyers.

Quote from: J Arcane;740339I don't think you'd have to actually change that much to make it unrecognizable for copyright purposes. Change the stat names if you're going to be cautious, and obviously do the power list from scratch. Even the table is solvable: switch the die type. Change out the 2d10 for a 2d6 or 2d8 or something, and all the numbers will have to be redone anyway, and that's the only part of it that's copyrightable.

I'd be inclined to make a system that is fundamentally similar to MEGS (exponential scale, stat matrix), but replaces the table with a numerical method of some sort.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;740491(MEGS being my favorite supers system, I have an opinion here and feel compelled to share it.)





I'd be inclined to make a system that is fundamentally similar to MEGS (exponential scale, stat matrix), but replaces the table with a numerical method of some sort.

Easy done. Target number = 11+ Opposing value.

Roll 2D10 (or adjust dice to separate from MEGs, say 3D6 or 2D8 etc) plus Acting Value

Equal or exceed the target number to then refer to the Results Table.

Which is when it gets a little trickier. Have played around with +1EV per 2 rolled over the target number. It doesn't work with the current game setup (Hero Points mess with probabilities or so I'm told - I'm not a numbers man)
but you're looking to put some distance between a clone and MEGs.

Example:

Power Fist (Dex:7 Str:12 Body:10) tackles a giant robot (Dex:5 Str:14 Body:11)

After winning initiative Power Fist (rolling 2D10) gets a roll of ... 17! The target number is 16 (Dex+11) and Power Fist gets 24. That's 8 points over the target number, so +4EV.

His Strength (12) is Effect Value, +4 to bring up to 16. 16-Resistance Value of Robot (Body 11) = 5 damage to the Robots current Body condition.

Maybe with 3D6 and the rule: two of same dice means you can add an extra D6, three of the same dice means you can add 2 extra dice (and if they come up the same you add an extra D6). This means Jimmy Olsen can't one shot Superman (theoretically if Jimmy rolled high enough he could take Supes down with Megs)

Also with Hero Points I'd suggest:

Increase AV,OV,EV,RV = 2HP per 1 point increase
Add another D6 to your 3D6 roll, roll dice, pick three and discard rest: cost 5 per extra D6
Last Ditch defence/Pushing abilities: 1 for the first point, 2 for the second point, 3 for the next point and so on (so to absorb 3 damage costs 6HP)

Separate HP from EXP (for character improvement)

Pushing costs the same as last ditch defence for points increase.

That's a 'top of my head just about to leave for work, take it or leave it and someone will probably denounce it as unworkable' suggestion.

I also came round to the 'two stats doing the same thing' that M&M 3e introduced, so Dex could be split like:

Spiderman Dex 13/8

First number is his opposing value. Second is his acting value both in and out of combat. This makes Spiderman harder to hit but doesn't make him a better fighter than Captain America, who might be Dex 10/12

Damn. I need to go to work now.

Curse you RPGSite! Youuuuuuu mmmmmadddddeeee meeeee laaaaattttteeee!!!

Quote from: JRT;740202To be fair, by releasing such a permissive license, WoTC basically did most of this to themselves.  I have to wonder if there will be a case study 20 years from now on this taught in business schools.

I fully agree that WotC threw itself on its own sword without anyone's help. I don't blame Paizo or the OSR for taking advantage of WotC's colossal stupidity. Their actions are good business. I also agree the OGL story will find its way into a business text at some point in the future.  

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;740205Except that publishing a retro-clone using the OGL explicitly *doesn't* fuck IP holders, because if it's done right it doesn't use any protected or reserved IP, it only uses what *isn't* protected IP and what has been expressly permitted per the license.  That's kinda the whole point.

Except that isn't what happened. Paizo fucked WotC. WotC would not be bleeding market share if not for the OGL.

The OGL gave away unbelievably precious IP that should have been protected and reserved. The stupidity of their decision to release the OGL is almost beyond comprehension. The D20 license made total sense, but not the OGL.

Quote from: P&P;740239a) K&KA is, as Spinachcat says, a foul and evil den of iniquity that's exactly like Tangency on the Big Purple.  People like Spinachcat should definitely stay here where it's nice and safe.

Den of iniquity? Please. That phrase deserves a modicum of respect. Basement of Bitches, at best.  

You are right however, I am wrong to compare K&KA with Tangency. It insults Tangency as they occasionally post some funny pictures.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;740491(MEGS being my favorite supers system, I have an opinion here and feel compelled to share it.)

I'd be inclined to make a system that is fundamentally similar to MEGS (exponential scale, stat matrix), but replaces the table with a numerical method of some sort.

If I was dropping the stat matrix, I may as well be making another game.

Hell, M&M3 basically is that game + effects-based chargen.

No, I'd rebuild the table for new die values/mechanic, possibly tweak the stat list so that one stat in 3 isn't essentially twice as useful, and drastically simplify the points cost system so that chargen is no longer so bloody complicated.

The table stays though. That shit's fun.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740520I fully agree that WotC threw itself on its own sword without anyone's help. I don't blame Paizo or the OSR for taking advantage of WotC's colossal stupidity.

The OGL gave away unbelievably precious IP that should have been protected and reserved. The stupidity of their decision to release the OGL is almost beyond comprehension. The D20 license made total sense, but not the OGL.

There was potential for the D&D IP to go away forever. As in, no game, no derivative games, and no more RPGs. When 0D&D was first released, it was in the rules, a license to create derivative material.

"Don't like what you see? Create your own, as you see fit."

With AD&D that was taken away.

When it looked like TSR was about to die, there was a very real danger that even AD&D would be buried, never to see the light of day again, and that roleplaying would be forgotten, a sidenote in the history of gaming, with the old boardgame manufacturers and their lame old games transplanting all the newly gained freedoms that D&D and RPGs brought to the table.

RPGs are indeed much smaller and are almost a sidenote compared to MMO's and online games, however their is still a loyal following for tabletop RPGs.

The open release of d20 and the OGL made this possible. Without it, tabletop RPGs would have been abandoned along time ago. The release of the OGL made all the players and Gms stakeholders, who got a say in how tabletop roleplaying games would develop. Paizo took it and ran with it. Why Hasbro with WOTC did not is a testament to their lack of understanding and comprehension when it comes to what really motivates gamers.

They should have used that IP giveaway to establish themselves as a leader in creating new content and fostering new content, but instead they crushed that, by trying to take the IP back in 2007 with the release of 4e instead.

Don't blame the gamers and the OGL for that bit of stupidity.

Quote from: GameDaddy;740540The open release of d20 and the OGL made this possible. Without it, tabletop RPGs would have been abandoned along time ago. The release of the OGL made all the players and Gms stakeholders, who got a say in how tabletop roleplaying games would develop. Paizo took it and ran with it. Why Hasbro with WOTC did not is a testament to their lack of understanding and comprehension when it comes to what really motivates gamers.

Naw, dude, I was there too and trust me - had D&D gone away when TSR died, most people in my neck of the woods would have shrugged and kept on gaming. AD&D 2E was pretty dead to most of the folk I gamed with by that point.

3rd Edition, for all its faults, did bring some of D&D's prominence back, and thanks to the OGL we have plenty retro-clone stuff to play with too. But the tabletop RPG hobby wouldn't have died if D&D went away - firstly, because the hobby isn't the industry, and secondly because the industry wouldn't have magically vanished, it'd have just had a big hole created ready for someone with a close-enough equivalent to roll in and take D&D's spot.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740520I fully agree that WotC threw itself on its own sword without anyone's help. I don't blame Paizo or the OSR...

Then we agree.

Quote from: SpinachcatExcept that isn't what happened. Paizo fucked WotC.

Maybe we're using "fucked" to mean different things.  To me, the statement "Paizo fucked WotC" implies that Paizo did something underhanded or wrong to WotC.  I don't think that's the case.  I think WotC offered a license, and Paizo agreed and used the license.

If, by "Paizo fucked WotC" you mean Paizo made legitimate use of the OGL that WotC offered and consequently became such a fierce competitor that it grabbed a bunch of market share, then yeah, I'd agree with that.

(I also think Paizo's success is not *just* from the OGL, but a combination of the benefits the OGL provides along with WotC making stupid decisions with the D&D brand and product line.  Even with the existence of the OGL, WotC could have retained control of the market; Pathfinder needn't have ever happened at all.)

If Wizards hadn't killed the magazines, Paizo might still just be a second-party contractor.

If Wizards hadn't 4e'd, Paizo never would've had a market for Pathfinder.

Everything Paizo is now is because Wizards created the environment and the motivation for them to take that space.

Had they removed head from rectum, Paizo would still just be some guys working for them, instead of the new competition.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740520The OGL gave away unbelievably precious IP that should have been protected and reserved. The stupidity of their decision to release the OGL is almost beyond comprehension. The D20 license made total sense, but not the OGL.

Except Wizards didn't lose their market share until after the release of D&D 4e. In fact the market was decidely tilted towards Wizard the only one making decent D&D.

Now the industry itself contracted but Wizards relative position remained the same just like TSR's position remained the same during previous contractions.

The difference is that before the OGL gaming customers had NO CHOICE but to take it up the ass to whatever the IP Holder decides. No matter how batshit crazy the decision is.

But with 4e customers had an option. And head to head the preference was for 3.5e in the form of Pathfinder.

This was a deliberate consquence foreseen by Atkinson and Dancey. The OGL was deliberately designed to preserve D&D in the face of the worse possible consquences. A decision made by seeing what happened in the wake of TSRs demise.

A MBA will tell you that the OGL In incediblely bad as the company loses total control of the IP. But Atkinson, Dancey and the rest of the wizards were thing like fucking human beings for whom D&D is an important cultural touchstone.

The officers of Wizards still had the moral obligation to be fiscally prudent so the compromise was the d20 SRD under the open gaming license. And it worked until Wizards deciding to jettison compatibility with 4e.

Honestly what you problem? You been handed a gift and you are free to use it how YOU see fit. If everybody else it doing it wrong you have the option to do something about it. Before you had to take it up the ass with the rest of the hobby. But instead you are shilling for Wizards and acting like you want to be a slave to whatever they shovel out to you.

Seriously the point is the play the D&D you want to play, not ensure Wizards is a financial success. For me if they make the D&D I like I will buy it from them. If they don't then I will buy it from Paizo, if they don't then hell I just might write it myself. Regardless the OGL allows me to make the choice I want to make.

Quote from: Spinachcat;740520The OGL gave away unbelievably precious IP that should have been protected and reserved. The stupidity of their decision to release the OGL is almost beyond comprehension. The D20 license made total sense, but not the OGL.
.

It has arguably been bad for WotC but great for gaming in general and d20 in particular. Thinking back to how awful things were in the final days of TSR it is probably a good thing. I may not have liked some of the decisions WoTC has made, but i like them as a company, and hoping 5e does well. This good will is partly a product of the contrast between how they've generally handled this issue and how T$R did. Yes this is an industry, but it is also a small hobby with passionate fans who want to contribute. My feeling is OGL has grown that community and made participants more active and involved in the design process.

Quote from: P&P;740239K&KA is, as Spinachcat says, a foul and evil den of iniquity that's exactly like Tangency on the Big Purple.  People like Spinachcat should definitely stay here where it's nice and safe.

:D

Heere be dragons.

No OGL, no Woodland Warriors. I rest my case.

On topic, LPJ Designs titles were pulled by One Book Shelf, in part due to alleged misuse of d20 Future non-OGL material.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;740556On topic, LPJ Designs titles were pulled by One Book Shelf, in part due to alleged misuse of d20 Future non-OGL material.

All of them or just the infringing material?

Quote from: J Arcane;740557All of them or just the infringing material?

My understanding was all of them, but not solely because of the OGL allegations - apparently Louis Porter Jr is a piece of work.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;740559My understanding was all of them, but not solely because of the OGL allegations - apparently Louis Porter Jr is a piece of work.

He makes GMS look like a fuckin' moral crusader.

He has, for years, been the most consistently unethical jackass in RPG publishing short of outright frauds like Shipman.

I have pretty much only ever heard good things about LPJ.

My only direct contact with LPJ was when he had a piece of art in his clip art series that I had bought off of Storn a few years prior and held the rights to.  When I brought this up to him, he was pretty quick in getting it removed.

He pays 1 bean a month for freelancers. 'Nuff said.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;740591I have pretty much only ever heard good things about LPJ.

Wow, I've only ever heard LPJ's a complete and total jackass.  Sure you're not thinking of Greg Porter?

Quote from: CRKrueger;740664Wow, I've only ever heard LPJ's a complete and total jackass.  Sure you're not thinking of Greg Porter?

No, definitely LPJ. I've only heard positive thing. Never worked with him though. The only thing i had heard before was the incident Sacro mentioned, but it seemed to be a mistake or misunderstanding that was smoothed over pretty fast.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;740682No, definitely LPJ. I've only heard positive thing. Never worked with him though. The only thing i had heard before was the incident Sacro mentioned, but it seemed to be a mistake or misunderstanding that was smoothed over pretty fast.

Yep.  He seemed very sincere about it, and i don't have reason to think otherwise.

shrug..

Who the hell is LPJ anyway? I looked them up but didn't recognise the name of any of his games. Is this just some small press guy churning out forgettable stuff who's gained infamy through personal beefs or what?

Quote from: Warthur;740686Who the hell is LPJ anyway? I looked them up but didn't recognise the name of any of his games. Is this just some small press guy churning out forgettable stuff who's gained infamy through personal beefs or what?

Basically. He was one of the big D20 publishers in the early days of RPGnow/DTRPG, at the height of the d20 boom. He was rather infamous for blatant plagiarism, swiping up smaller or lone-wolf products that were under the OGL, and then just re-releasing them under his own branding, word for word.

He rarely did anything illegal, and his targets were almost always smaller fry, so it went unnoticed for a long time until he did it to some early Adamant products and caught GMS' ire for it. The feud between the two went on for some time.

Quote from: J Arcane;740773Basically. He was one of the big D20 publishers in the early days of RPGnow/DTRPG, at the height of the d20 boom. He was rather infamous for blatant plagiarism, swiping up smaller or lone-wolf products that were under the OGL, and then just re-releasing them under his own branding, word for word.

He rarely did anything illegal, and his targets were almost always smaller fry, so it went unnoticed for a long time until he did it to some early Adamant products and caught GMS' ire for it. The feud between the two went on for some time.

Isn't that sort of the point of the OGL, though? The OGL bits are fair game, even just a copy and paste without changing anything.

And realistically, how much of D&D comes from people who were probably not compensated (or compensated well) for their additions to the game?

Joe Fischer, who came up with the D&D ranger. Did he get any money from the Drizzt books? Or the guy who came up with the Beholder, TSR milked that quite a bit.

Quote from: JeremyR;740795Isn't that sort of the point of the OGL, though? The OGL bits are fair game, even just a copy and paste without changing anything.

And realistically, how much of D&D comes from people who were probably not compensated (or compensated well) for their additions to the game?

Joe Fischer, who came up with the D&D ranger. Did he get any money from the Drizzt books? Or the guy who came up with the Beholder, TSR milked that quite a bit.

Legally?

Sure, you've got a point.

Ethically?

Come on, dude, it's a pretty big dick move.

Quote from: J Arcane;740801Legally?

Sure, you've got a point.

Ethically?

Come on, dude, it's a pretty big dick move.

If it was just mechanics then its legal and part of the OGL Id assume.

If it was the actual unique setting text copied whole cloth. Then No. He was actually breaking copyright laws as the "fluff" text is protected.

Sounds like he was stealing the non-mechanics part?

Quote from: Omega;740804If it was just mechanics then its legal and part of the OGL Id assume.

If it was the actual unique setting text copied whole cloth. Then No. He was actually breaking copyright laws as the "fluff" text is protected.

Sounds like he was stealing the non-mechanics part?

Depends on how the specific works' OGL defines product identity.

In the early days, when it was still new, a lot more people were releasing stuff in full, not always intentionally either.

Though there were IIRC some cases where it seemed he was just assuming OGL=free and taking shit whether it was PI or not, which is how he ran into GMS' ire.

Mongoose just used to collect stuff from other sources and release it under the 'Ultimate' range of books.

That's shady enough.

So to summarise the history to date:

- Wizards were there at "ground zero" of the retro-clone movement (OSRIC) and made initial contact which looked an awful lot like an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle diplomatically before resorting to the lawyers.

- With OSRIC showing no sign of returning to the bottle, and Wizards told that they may as well escalate this to their legal team, their legal team has proceeded to take no action visible to the public or to anyone involved in the prior conversation.

- OSRIC is celebrating its 8th birthday this year.

It looks an awful lot to me like Wizards decided it wasn't worth pursuing unless and until a retroclone became successful enough to make it worth the legal costs.

Quote from: Warthur;740848It looks an awful lot to me like Wizards decided it wasn't worth pursuing unless and until a retroclone became successful enough to make it worth the legal costs.

Based on what it would take to be considered "successful" to Hasbro, I don't think that will ever happen. If 4E sales (which were GREAT for a tabletop rpg) were considered a failure then I don't know of any clone that would raise an eyebrow.

Which is just fine by me. Tabletop rpgs are a niche hobby and most attempts to profit from it on a huge scale end up not working out so well.

Quote from: Warthur;740848It looks an awful lot to me like Wizards decided it wasn't worth pursuing unless and until a retroclone became successful enough to make it worth the legal costs.

Except by delaying they cripple their chances of recovering damages. While inaction will never cause a creator to lose his copyright (that a trademark issue) it will limit his remedies to the point where the worse that can happen is the infringing work must cease being distributed.

Quote from: estar;740862Except by delaying they cripple their chances of recovering damages. While inaction will never cause a creator to lose his copyright (that a trademark issue) it will limit his remedies to the point where the worse that can happen is the infringing work must cease being distributed.

Which could be all they want; a lot of the time an injunction to stop a work that's sapping your profits being distributed is worth more in the long run than getting damages in the first place.

Quote from: Warthur;740022For that matter, have they ever slapped down a publisher for failure to abide by the OGL, D20 licence, or the GSL? I know they didn't come after 4E Kingdoms of Kalamar, despite it not coming under the GSL, though given that Dave Kenzer is an IP attorney in his day job he probably did a decent enough job of skirting the line to make any case tenuous, and I'm pretty sure not every publisher had the benefit of having their own in-house lawyer.

I'm coming to this discussion late, and I'm mostly a lurker, but as I was the guy who spearheaded the 4E Kingdoms of Kalamar PDF, I thought I'd chime in. So here are my thoughts off the top of my head (forgive me for repeating things most everyone already knows; just getting some stuff off my chest).

As I recall, neither I nor most of my colleagues at the time ever understood Wizards' rationale for creating all the open licensing. It was obvious to us even then that WotC (a nickname some of their staff really disliked at the time) were shooting themselves in the foot by opening the door wide and inviting competition.

So as you know, the open licenses are good for the fans and small publishers because it's clearly stated what is and isn't allowed. No IP lawyers required, and no fear of Wizards' lawyers coming after you as long as you follow the rules. Those are great for everyone but Wizards who (I believe) just wanted to shove off the less profitable products (i.e., adventures) onto other hands. I don't think they ever considered significant competition in sourcebooks, 'pocket' rules editions, variant systems (like Pathfinder, eventually) and so on.

(Wizards: "A license means other companies will create adventures for us, and their fans will buy all our core products!"

Me: "But the fans are going to buy your core books anyway...")

But if you follow the KoK 4E model, all you really have to do is attribute copyright and trademark properly, create new material instead of copying, and clearly say "Compatible with D&D..." (roughly speaking - I am not a copyright lawyer).

I believe Dave explained it to me once using the 'oil filter' model. You go to the auto parts store and there are plenty of oil filters (and other products) that state 'compatible with [insert car make/model here]'. Ford doesn't offer a special license for oil filter manufacturers...

Quote from: Mark Plemmons;740892But if you follow the KoK 4E model, all you really have to do is attribute copyright and trademark properly, create new material instead of copying, and clearly say "Compatible with D&D..." (roughly speaking - I am not a copyright lawyer).

Going this route (i.e., not using the OGL) can be viable, but it's most viable with a rules and stat light product.  A setting book is an excellent candidate for such an approach, but I think it's harder with something like a splat book or module.

Using the "no OGL" approach, I wouldn't say you need to attribute (someone else's) copyright, you just need to avoid infringing on anyone else's copyright.  You do, however, need to attribute someone else's trademark, but it's legal to claim compatibility with someone else's trademark.  You just need to do so in a manner that makes it clear the mark is owned by someone else, and you want to avoid any language or trade dress that could create confusion in the consumer.

The reason it's riskier to go "no OGL" with a more rules-heavy book isn't really about trademark, it's mostly about copyright.  While you can't copyright the actual rules of a game, you can copyright a unique presentation of those rules mechanisms.  One could definitely argue that you don't need the OGL at all, but if you do so you could enter some legal "gray areas" where everything isn't cut and dried and obvious.

Say you're going to publish a module compatible with AD&D.  You include some new monsters with descriptions and stat blocks.  If you use the same terminology and the same order and format as the monsters in the Monster Manual, are you infringing on WotC's copyright?  It's not certain.  (Some publishers in the old days created their own terms for the same concepts, like "hits to kill" instead of "hit points," and stuff like that.)

One thing the OGL does is remove that uncertainty, and give the licensee permission to use the familiar "open content" terms.  By agreeing to and using the OGL, you give up some rights you'd normally have (like being able to claim compatibility with WotC's trademarks), but the benefits can be compelling, depending on what you want to publish.  It's not so much that you couldn't publish without it, it's that it removes some of the legal uncertainty that might come about with crunchier products.

Quote from: Mark Plemmons;740892Those are great for everyone but Wizards who (I believe) just wanted to shove off the less profitable products (i.e., adventures) onto other hands. I don't think they ever considered significant competition in sourcebooks, 'pocket' rules editions, variant systems (like Pathfinder, eventually) and so on.

WotC was fully aware that giving away the mechanics of D&D3 carried the risk of a third party Players Handbook.

I mentioned it several times (here in this forum) that during a Retailer Seminar at Gen Con, where Ryan Dancey explained the roll-out of 3e (and the importance of the OGL/d20 license in that scheme) to a room full of retailers, he was asked: "What happens when someone publishes a rulebook to rival the PHB?"

Dancey answered to the effect of "Let them try! We have the better artwork, layout, price (thanks to economy of scale)."
Remember, the three core books had the insane price point of 19.95$, for 280+pp, full color hardcovers.

What they didn't expect was the revolution in printing, self publishing, PoD, and the risk of someone using the OGL to clone older editions. (Or they just didn't fear the latter because they thought 3e was the superior product.)
And what they also didn't expect was someone giving away gorgeously illustrated and layouted rival PHBs (or full systems) in PDF format, for free or at-cost PoD.

I still question the assumption that it was the OGL (or, more appropriately, that it was ONLY the OGL) that ever bit WotC in the ass or hurt them in any way.

Quite frankly, I don't think any of those things did threaten them until they abandoned their own system and existing customer base. On their own, either the OGL or 4E weren't catastrophic. Together? That's a different story, and the effects of that stupidity are still playing out.

Hi all!

I'm doing some research for the panel I'm running at Pax East next week ("What's Happening in Tabletop RPGs", for those who may be attending!) and I stumbled into this thread.

I'd like to make a couple of observations to maybe help provide a more solid foundation for some of your speculations.  It's been nearly 15 years since the decisions were made to do the OGL and d20, and a lot of the context seems to have been forgotten.

Let's rewind the clock to 1997.  That was the year Five Rings Publishing got the deal done to purchase TSR, brought Wizards into the deal, and that ended up with Wizards buying both TSR and FRPG.

That was a bad, bad year for RPGs.  TSR was essentially dead - it could not print any new products because it's printer had suspended its credit due to non-payment of past invoices.  TSR's financial picture was so bleak that no other printer would work with it except in a pre-pay situation and it had no cash, so it could not get any new product on shelves.  In the run up to the crisis in '95 and '96, it had stuffed its channels with backstock and no distributor and no book chain was going to take any more old product.  TSR had reached the end of its rope.

But TSR wasn't the only company in dire straits.  FASA Corp was also reeling - sales of Battletech/Mechwarrior had collapsed, and Shadowrun and Earthdawn were barely showing a pulse.  It had bet big on a new miniatures game, and that game wasn't selling.  White Wolf was also struggling.  It had created such a huge fragmented cloud of products and was trying to support a dozen games, all with slightly different variations on the Storyteller system, each creating a niche of a niche and making it hard for players of one niche to find critical mass - and sales of new products were a fraction of what their core books had generated.  Long time industry stalwarts like Chaosium, Iron Crown Enterprises, Steve Jackson Games, and GDW were all downsizing as sales across the board dried up.  Things were so bad that the GAMA trade show that year featured a number of industry insiders wearing black armbands to commemorate "the death of the industry".

I was asked to take over the reigns of the tabletop RPG business in late 1998 and the very first meeting I attended was a briefing by the head of RPG R&D, the MBA who was responsible for assembling a financial picture of that business, the head of marketing, and Peter.  I called that the "dirty diaper" meeting, because I was basically handed a bag of shit, and told by Vince Calouri, who was Peter's XO, "figure out what went wrong, and fix it".  TSR had come to Wizards with a non-functioning business.  Wizards' cash allowed it to clean up its financial house and get back into the business of producing RPG products, but even after a gap of several months (which you might think would increase expectation for new releases), the stuff it was making at that point was selling in the low thousands, and sometimes the hundreds of copies.

So in 1999 as we geared up to produce 3rd edition, we weren't just talking about how to increase sales by 10-20%.  We were talking about how, and maybe if, the whole business could be salvaged.

When we considered the competitive landscape we were going to ship 3rd Edition into, we decided that our biggest competitors were 1st and 2nd edition, not some non-D&D franchise.  Realistically due to the status of the market we knew that our only real chance for success was to introduce a huge wave of upgrades from older editions of D&D to the new edition of D&D.  There weren't enough people buying other RPGs to make it worthwhile to try and take marketshare from other games.  

We also knew that the market was structurally unsound.  For many reasons there were millions of people playing tabletop RPGs but we estimated the number of people buying tabletop RPGs in the low tens of thousands.  That much overhang was an indication that the market was fundamentally failing to deliver products that the consumers were willing to buy.  The industry had gone down various rabbit holes and was printing itself into oblivion.

So the OGL/d20 project was a part of a multi-pronged Hail Mary.  Absolutely horrific conditions are the only time a business will try insanely ridiculous strategies.  

I think it is inarguable that the strategy paid off.  If you had told retailers in 1999 that in 2001 they would be stocking their shelves with new RPG products from dozens of new publishers and that RPGs would triple or quadruple their sales, they'd have laughed you out of the room.  But that's exactly what happened.  And the transition from 2nd to 3rd edition was dramatically better than the transition from 1st to 2nd edition.  In 1989, when that 1e/2e transition took place, TSR sold 289,000 Player's Handbooks, in the full year.  In 2000, we sold 300,000 Player's Handbooks IN ONE MONTH.  By 2001, the tabletop RPG business at Wizards was significantly profitable.

People began publishing competitive Player's Handbooks almost immediately.  And predictably, none of them sold very well.  Why would a player buy a 3rd party book when they could get a "real" Dungeons & Dragons book which had the best production values in the industry?  The clones had no meaningful value to offer.  We even priced the core 3e books "insanely low" so that nobody could really undercut us on price.  The D&D brand held its value so well that when Wizards decided to do the 3.5 upgrade a full 2 years ahead of schedule, at a 33% price increase over the launch of the 3.0 books, the result was an even greater upsell.

But things went poorly after that high water mark.  The 3.5 transition happened too soon, and too suddenly, and was too significant.  A lot of 3rd party publishers didn't take it seriously and got caught short with inventory people didn't want because it was "incompatible" with 3.5, and the lead time to get their 3.5 products on shelves was long enough that cashflow starvation killed a number of publishers.  The MMO, which had been a curiosity gnawing at the edges of the market exploded after World of Warcraft, and sucked a huge percentage of the tabletop RPG player network out of their regular gaming groups, seriously degrading the network.  The knock-on effects to the economy from the dot-com meltdown, 9/11, and two wars, didn't help matters either.  People tend to overlook the fact that a lot of hobby gamers are military, and when they're on deployment, they're not shopping at local game stores, or providing a steady and predictable presence at game nights and conventions.

After 2005, the trend was really on an obvious downslope.  Despite numerous public statements that it wasn't working on 4e, it was obvious to many people that Wizards was prepping a new edition.  When they shipped it in 2008, Wizards told anyone who would listen that it was the most successful launch of a new edition of D&D in history.  So despite the fact that the OGL had been available for 8 years at that point, despite the fact that many people had made complete replacements for D&D, some of them very good, and despite the fact that Wizards had 8 years of experience in working with and around games that used the OGL, it was still able to tap a huge reservoir of good will towards D&D when 4e launched.

If 4e had been a game that players wanted, 4e would have been a massive success.  In my opinion, that's a very hard statement to argue with.

Everything that came after, especially the rise of Pathfinder, derives from the simple fact that 4e was not the game that players wanted.  I would further argue that it would not have mattered if the OGL had existed or not.  The near-death of TSR in 1997 showed that gamers don't just switch to another game system when D&D falters.  They just stop buying.  They just keep playing the game they already own.  The collapse of 4e wasn't because Pathfinder existed.  It would have happened regardless.

Pathfinder got lucky.  Paizo combined it's direct access to tens of thousands of customers it had from its time as the Dragon and Dungeon magazine publisher to address the gap.  Any number of companies - Fantasy Flight, Mongoose, Green Ronin, etc. could have addressed that gap.  Paizo just got there first, and had the advantage of that database of contacts to leverage, and when 4e stumbled, Pathfinder caught a break.

So Paizo didn't hurt Wizards of the Coast with Pathfinder.  Wizards self-inflicted its wounds, and would have sustained them in the absence of the OGL.

The OGL saved the D&D business.  It helped Wizards recoup a big chunk of the money it spent to buy TSR.  It made tabletop RPGs a meaningfully successful category again for retailers.  It launched the careers of dozens of designers who would never have gotten a toehold in the old industry.  Wizards hired some of those designers and directly benefited from their experience - including the guy running the 5e team, Mike Mearls.  Yes, Wizards certainly would like to live in a world where there was no Pathfinder RPG.  It would make 5e a much easier strategy to execute.  But there would not be a 5e if 3e hadn't worked, and 3e worked in large measure because of the OGL.

I basically agree with Ryan Dancey (thanks for that BTW, interesting read), except that while 4e's design was always going to alienate a chunk of players, I do think that if WoTC had stuck to the OGL or a generous GSL, the third party support from Paizo, Necromancer et al might well have been enough to push 4e 'over the top' and make it a success. 4e's design does have a substantial fan base (me included, mostly), but almost no one has much good to say about WoTC's published 4e adventures. Paizo and Necromancer could and would have produced vastly superior material; Necromancer '1e feel' is not a great fit with 4e, but Paizo in particular has a design philosophy that could have played brilliantly to 4e's underappreciated strengths - to me 4e seems a much better system for 'adventure path' play than 3e/PF, yet 4e has never had decent adventure paths published for it.

Edit: I guess there is the counter-example of Goodman Games - they put out  a large number of cheap & cheerful 4e adventures, generally superior to WoTC's stuff (not a high bar), but obviously they didn't sell well enough and GG soon abandoned 4e to do their own thing. Still, I think continued Paizo support could have taken 4e to another level.

Great post Ryan. Thanks for dropping by (i'd totally forgotten you were a member).

I'm always very careful to not say that 4e is a bad game.  Many people I really respect think it's an incredibly well designed game.  It just wasn't the game that the market wanted.

Awesome post by Ryan! Thank you for that insight into the factors which brought about the OGL!

Every time I hear the horror stories of no sales in the mid-late 90s, I wonder if I was the only one buying that shit, and buy it I did :D  I think I kept the AAFES bookstore in business all by myself.  But hey, I was overseas in the military with expendable income, so I bought just about every 2e product I could get my hands on.  Never actually played with most of it, but it was reading material when I was in the field.

Quote from: RSDancey;741115By 2001, the tabletop RPG business at Wizards was significantly profitable.

Which, I daresay, is the most important measure of success, as far as Wizards were concerned.

When OGL happened, I remember thinking that (a) it was an aggressive move to grow the roleplaying game pie, as a whole, rather than try to capture a larger slice of the existing pie, but (b) the OGL was overly generous/permissive and that, like the GPL (an open source software licence which, I'm guessing, inspired the OGL), once you let the genie out of the bottle, you couldn't put it back in.

Ryan - With hindsight, do you wish you'd made the OGL more restrictive?

Quote from: RSDancey;741126I'm always very careful to not say that 4e is a bad game.  Many people I really respect think it's an incredibly well designed game.  It just wasn't the game that the market wanted.

I know you've addressed this point in passing before, but how much of an impact do you think the collapse of the D&D Insider/virtual tabletop side of the 4E strategy had in the failure of 4E in the market? If DDI were solid and reliable and available right when the 4E products were coming out, along with a high-quality virtual tabletop product that provided everything that had been promised, do you think the market would have given it more of a chance?

My gut feeling is to say that it wouldn't have mattered - 4E, despite being good at what it does, was enough of a break from past precedent that it just didn't feel like D&D to enough people for the market to embrace it. Under another title it might have actually done better in the long run - it'd have lost the short term early boom of sales, but on the flipside it wouldn't have caught the heat it's caught for breaking so much from past precedent and it would be much easier for people to come to it without preconceptions. The clean break from backwards compatibility was so stark that it didn't feel like it made sense to call it the same game - the sheer amount of work you'd need to do to adapt a 1E/2E/3E module to 4E, compared to the work to convert an identical module from 1E/2E to 3E, is perhaps the most convincing demonstration of this.

Another question: one of the things which I found downright strange about the 4E launch was the weird debacle surrounding skill challenges. It felt like the team were came out with a patch almost as soon as the game came out - and then kept patching said patch, and never seemed (at least when I was still paying attention) to arrive at a version of the system they were happy with. That was frankly bizarre to watch, because surely if the system was so broken that the development team said "Oh god, there's absolutely no way we can ask people to live with that, we have to do a rewrite and put out errata ASAP", it should really have been caught in the playtesting process, if that process were at all robust or careful. I know you weren't responsible for anything going down in D&Dland at that point in time but do you have any insight into what was going on with the skill challenges and why they seemed so sloppily implemented as originally written?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;741133Every time I hear the horror stories of no sales in the mid-late 90s, I wonder if I was the only one buying that shit, and buy it I did :D  I think I kept the AAFES bookstore in business all by myself.  But hey, I was overseas in the military with expendable income, so I bought just about every 2e product I could get my hands on.  Never actually played with most of it, but it was reading material when I was in the field.

Heh!  Yeah, there were a few of us military folks still playing and buying the books/magazines at AAFES or other exchanges :)  

I had no idea what was going on in the background at the time, even when the TSR logo had changed to a Wizards logo on the stuff I bought.  I was really sad when I read the account of what happened to TSR.

Quote from: RSDancey;741126I'm always very careful to not say that 4e is a bad game.  Many people I really respect think it's an incredibly well designed game.  It just wasn't the game that the market wanted.

A lot of people I've talked to (many of them FLGS owners) said that if Essentials came out first, 4e would be a lot more popular and 5e may not even be a thing now.  Opinion?

Quote from: RSDancey;741126I'm always very careful to not say that 4e is a bad game.  Many people I really respect think it's an incredibly well designed game.  It just wasn't the game that the market wanted.

Thanks for jumping into the thread.

My contention that is D&D 4e is a well designed game that suffered from bad presentation. Not in the layout or the writing but what they choose to do with the system. It was a one note game (high powered fantasy) and that ultimately what ultimately made it a game the market didn't want.

And to add support to your statement about what knocks of the core books didn't gain any traction. Throughout the 2000's (and to this date) I travel around on company business periodically. I make it a point to stop in at the local game store and see what they got. When I started writing for Goodman Games during the waning days of 3.5e, I stopped to try to sell them on the books I was writing.

For most the answer was that selling third party products was tough, very tough. Retailer after retailer across the country told me that most of their customer were Wizards only. That most of were aware of third party material but they consider them crap. Combined with word of mouth, meant the only sure sellers was official wizards product.

Quote from: Warthur;741138Another question: one of the things which I found downright strange about the 4E launch was the weird debacle surrounding skill challenges. It felt like the team were came out with a patch almost as soon as the game came out - and then kept patching said patch, and never seemed (at least when I was still paying attention) to arrive at a version of the system they were happy with. That was frankly bizarre to watch, because surely if the system was so broken that the development team said "Oh god, there's absolutely no way we can ask people to live with that, we have to do a rewrite and put out errata ASAP", it should really have been caught in the playtesting process, if that process were at all robust or careful. I know you weren't responsible for anything going down in D&Dland at that point in time but do you have any insight into what was going on with the skill challenges and why they seemed so sloppily implemented as originally written?

A lot of 4e came out half-assed in June 2008; Skill Challenges are probably the most egregious example, but you also had the broken monster math where they could not do enough damage to threaten PCs at higher level; and 4e Monster Manual 1 critters often seemed to be from a different game - they didn't use the DMG math for damage and you had stuff like ogres and dragons doing 1e Monster Manual amounts of damage. A lot of the presentation in the 4e PHB was also poor, though the fundamental player-side structures were generally ok - that seems to have been were the focus of development was. The DM-side stuff like Skill Challenges was often just rough first drafts. The game wasn't really ready until 2010, when they settled on workable math (though monster hit points are still way too high - that seems to have been regarded as a core feature not a bug).

I think this is all explainable by the late (2007) cancellation of the original planned 4e 'Orcus' design, and a new design being rushed to publication at least a year too soon to meet a schedule that should have been abandoned. The contrast with 3.0 is striking - apart from Cleric 'buff' spells, 3.0 seemed to work fine out of the box, it had clearly been playtested (albeit within an AD&D mindset) and its major problems only emerged later as people got used to the system. Whereas 4e smacks you in the face with a wet kipper. It's a real bitch, maybe runs ok at 1st level if you can even manage to make PCs using the PHB (very hard until DDI) and don't use splats, but by 4th or 5th level the 4e that came out in 2008 is already breaking down horribly. It took me years and a lot of experience with the system to get it running smoothly. A lot of people just gave up.

Quote from: estar;741178Thanks for jumping into the thread.

My contention that is D&D 4e is a well designed game that suffered from bad presentation. Not in the layout or the writing but what they choose to do with the system. It was a one note game (high powered fantasy) and that ultimately what ultimately made it a game the market didn't want.

It's 'cinematic fantasy' - it's very closely modelled on Hollywood action movie tropes (almost like Feng Shui). It's designed to let you play Orlando Bloom as Legolas in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. So it's high powered in that sense.
But PCs even at high levels are actually very limited/low powered compared to high level 3e or pre-3e D&D; the casters most notably. The power gradient in terms of world impact is extremely shallow compared to all previous editions. There's no flying over enemy armies incinerating them with your wand of fireballs, if you want to fight an enemy army you had better set up something like PJ-LOTR's Battle of Helm's Deep.

Dancey:  (1) If your presentation is recorded, will you put it up online for others to watch after the fact?  (2) In your consideration, what was the impact of the MMO market upon TRPGs since WOW went online in 2004?

Great post Ryan. Its easy to forget how bad things were for RPGs on the eve of 3E. I remember feeling like D&D would be out of print and many of the local gaming groups were dying. Now witht he OGL, even if WoTC went of business tomorrow, the game will still be available.

Quote from: RSDancey;741126I'm always very careful to not say that 4e is a bad game.  Many people I really respect think it's an incredibly well designed game.  It just wasn't the game that the market wanted.

I am curious, what game do you think the market wanted at the time?

I can't speak for others, but i was definitely ready for something new, that didn't have some of the extreme optimization issues 3e (it was a great game, I was just getting tired of some of the table debates that kept happening). So I was on board for a new system, and guess I just was expecting it to be 4E. Do you think something other than 3.75 could have succeeded?

^ Yeah, very interested in this note. I for one found the big character optimisation focus to be a big barrier to getting into 3E and I thought the time was well and truly ripe for an edition which took as an axiom "It's what you do in the actual game that's important, not what you do in character generation/levelling up".

I also think that the character optimisation focus would increasingly make 3E/4E vulnerable to MMOs over the years, because MMOs are basically character optimisation games with all of the mechanical heavy lifting handled for you by a computer, and so delivered the charop side of the game far more efficiently and easily than a tabletop RPG ever could, and I'm very much of the opinion that tabletop RPGs can only survive by emphasising their unique selling points, rather than the stuff that actually a videogame can actually handle more easily and less stressfully.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;741199I am curious, what game do you think the market wanted at the time?

I can't speak for others, but i was definitely ready for something new, that didn't have some of the extreme optimization issues 3e (it was a great game, I was just getting tired of some of the table debates that kept happening). So I was on board for a new system, and guess I just was expecting it to be 4E. Do you think something other than 3.75 could have succeeded?

Similarly, I wanted a 3e that was not so labor-intensive to DM and play, while still feeling like (and compatible with) TSR (A)D&D.

4e was definitely not that, and I suspect I'm not the only one who felt this way.

Quote from: JRT;740202To be fair, by releasing such a permissive license, WoTC basically did most of this to themselves.  I have to wonder if there will be a case study 20 years from now on this taught in business schools.

I've been trying to keep up with this thread, but I may have missed some posts so I apologize if the point I'm about to bring up has already been discussed.

I don't think the OGL was the big mistake by WOTC. Instead I think it was kicking Paizo to the curb at the launch of 4E. It has been brought up that there are other companies that could have tried to launch a Pathfinder-like product, but I think they also had more of an eye at the beginning g of working with 4E for the most part. With Dragon and Dungeon magazine being taken away from Paizo it seems like WOTC was basically telling Paizo to curl up in a ball and die.

I think it should have occurred to someone at WOTC that the owners of Paizo, rather than lose their income, or try to work for someone else in the game industry, would instead decide to compete with WOTC. Beyond their regular customer base they had contacts with many writers and artists (who also wanted to keep earning), and they had very good experience with producing material on a regular schedule.

I think that if WOTC had continued their partnership with Paizo for 2-3 years after the launch of 4E, and then cut Paizo off then 4E would have done better in the market. Instead they created a near instant competitor that would hold up the banner for those who wanted to stay with 3E.

The above is what I think a case study could be made of. I will always wonder if whoever came up with the strategy for WOTC to fire Paizo sufferred any repercussions, if it was scapegoated onto an underling, or if this is something the WOTC bosses just don't talk about.

(I'm saying this not as a Paizo fanboy, but as someone who:
1. Is more of an OSR/Savage Worlds gamer
2. Never has played or even read Pathfinder
3. Only bought those Paizo Dragon magazines that had the large Greyhawk maps.
4. Only played 3.x, never could find the time to DM 3.x.
5. Could never get past reading the 4E PHB (it was a soul sucking experience for me), but was still surprised that 5E was announced so soon, and that, at least commercially speaking, 4E wasn't a success - I figured I was just being a grumpy old codger and that most everyone else had happily shifted to 4E.)

I'm in the 'grumpy old codger' camp. I want:

An updated BECMI line, using the NEXT mechanics stripped to the bone and presented in a way that is pleasing to the eye, doesn't cost a fortune, is easy to learn and fast to play, and is supported with adventures and sourcebooks. It needs to be easy enough to teach the kids and be split into levels, yes like the original BECMI stuff. Start with Basic up to say 5th level, Expert up to 10th, Companion to 15th, Masters to 20th and 'Legendary' from 25+. Put it in thin softback books, not bullet stopping tomes. By splitting the game into levels you give a low starting point for tryout and options for those who want more, along with the potential revenue extra box sets bring.

I don't want:

A condescending introductory game that points me towards buying into the full fat version of the game and nowhere else. If someone wants 'full fat', they can go ahead and buy that. I don't want to subscribe to an online service to get the best out of my game. Maps and minis should be optional, not a requirement. Most of all I don't want 'more of the same'. That is, three core hardback books, a mountain of splatbooks and optional rules tomes, a massive commitment in terms of time to learn and play the thing, blank looks from the kids as I try to teach it to them, and a potential £75-£100 investment just to get me started.

Yes, BECMI is available in PDF again. I know that, I have bought all the PDFs and own the original game. That all still works, thanks. What would be nice is a modern day equivalent, using 30 years of extra know how, excellent unified art and offering a license for 3rd party developers to create adventures and sourcebooks for it without wondering if the license will be pulled. Plus, maybe, an option that a stamp of 'approved by WOTC' or some such could be shown in the corner along with standard across the board cover art (with a unique illustration in the box section middle showing some adventure detail) to keep presentation levels high, whether it's been cooked up by Wizards or not.

Do the stuff I ask for and you can aim for:

1) The kids
2) The old farts with disposable income and happy memories of times when games came in 64 page pamphlets
3) The parents looking for an easy to buy present for xmas/birthdays, plus relatives who need present ideas 'Yeah, he's been after an 'Expert Set'. $15 from Toys R Us' as opposed to 'Players Handbook 4. It's got a picture of a guy with tentacles coming out of his face and you can buy it from a shop 40 miles away or online or... the hell with it, just get 'em a gift voucher'
4) People returning to the hobby who have no idea about what happened to D&D since the 80s
5) Anyone else for whom the idea of stumping up for a game line that will be cancelled in 5 years is unappealing.

In other words Basic and Advanced versions of the game. It worked before, quite well if I recall.

@APN

I think your wants list sounds good to me as well. However, I'm not sure even if the game really needs a structure above 15th level or so except as something that is 'super' optional. I've never ran or played in a game that has gone beyond 13th level or so. I guess that's why I see the scope of levels in ACKS appealing, while still allowing the truly high level spells as costly and rare rituals.

ACKS does come in a bullet stopping tome, but I think WOTC would be better served by splitting the game up into more digestable chunks. Maybe these days the equivalent to hold levels 1-5 would be a 96 page softback.

Sadly, I doubt that's going to happen.

Quote from: wmarshal;741214I think that if WOTC had continued their partnership with Paizo for 2-3 years after the launch of 4E, and then cut Paizo off then 4E would have done better in the market. Instead they created a near instant competitor that would hold up the banner for those who wanted to stay with 3E.

There's a good chance that, if Paizo hadn't done Pathfinder, somebody else would have done a "v3.6". There was clearly demand for it.

To be fair, Paizo had the advantage of having turned their list of Dragon and Dungeon subscribers into Pathfinder customers, which undoubtedly gave the Pathfinder RPG a bit more traction than anyone else would have enjoyed but I'm sure that, had someone like Chris Pramas or Monte Cook decided to do a v3.6, it would have been a success (although maybe not as big a success as Pathfinder has been).

In some ways, I think Wizards were disadvantaged by the fact that they (a) owned D&D, and (b) were part of Hasbro. Both those factors probably bred a bit of overconfidence, whereas Paizo, being smaller and under an existential threat, were probably a lot more focused on understanding what the market actually wanted.

One of the advantages of the OGL is that all new D&D must compete with old D&D directly.  4E just couldn't.  I played it and enjoyed it, but it was OGL B/X products that out competed 4E for me.  And for most other people it was OGL Pathfinder products that out competed 4E for them.

This thread is also about whether or not Hasbro/WotC has ever (or can ever) attempt to put the genie back in the bottle with legal bullying.  So will D&D Next be able to compete with old D&D directly without legal bullying to knock out it's potential competition?  And will WotC/Hasbro resort to it if they need to in order to sell D&D Next?

Something tells me that Paizo would have been the target of this kind of litigation in the early days of PF if it was possible at all.

Quote from: Warthur;741138I know you've addressed this point in passing before, but how much of an impact do you think the collapse of the D&D Insider/virtual tabletop side of the 4E strategy had in the failure of 4E in the market?

None.  I'm not a believer in virtual tabletops.  I think they aren't a compelling technology.  If you want to play an RPG online, play an MMO.  If you want the experience of having friends sit around a table, play a tabletop RPG.  The hybrid on-line / tabletop experience just doesn't make sense, in my opinion.  

There is a small audience of people who have a socially strong gaming group that can withstand the pressures of distance, who want to keep playing their tabletop game but can't physically meet.  For that small audience, virtual games are a great solution.  I just don't think there are enough such people to make a business that makes sense.

I have believed for decades that there is a value in hybridizing the computer with the tabletop experience.  That's the reason there was a character generator shipped on CD with the 3e PHBs, for example, and why I pressured Wizards to do the Master Tools project.

The age of the hybridization is rapidly approaching.  I don't buy physical RPG products anymore.  I exclusively use electronic books.  I think that there will come a time when we will abandon the "book" metaphor completely.  You shouldn't buy a "player's handbook", you should buy a character generator, and it should have a micro-transaction driven business model to let you customize each character with content.  You shouldn't buy a monster bestiary, you should buy an app that helps you construct interesting encounters, and the library of monsters you can use can be extended by MTX, etc. etc. etc.

You should have a computer help manage the battlespace.  Instead of asking a GM to "fight the monsters", the computer should do as much of that work as the GM desires.  The battles would get more interesting (and a lot harder).  

There's a limit to the complexity of the environment that can be simulated on the tabletop.  Humans just can't process too many variables at once.  I would argue that 3e/3.5/Pathfinder have already passed that point so that few people actually run the rules as written.  With computer assistance a lot more complex factors can be added to the game without increasing the processing demand on the human players - which would add a lot of richness to the experience.  It's the difference between the battle of Helm's Deep on a sunny day, and Helm's Deep at night in a driving rainstorm.

Within that context there is probably a "virtual tabletop" appliance that isn't designed to let people play the game when not physically present, but rather a way to visualize the encounters for everyone physically present.  That's a whole different kind of "virtual tabletop" than what people talk about when they use that term today.

QuoteI know you weren't responsible for anything going down in D&Dland at that point in time but do you have any insight into what was going on with the skill challenges and why they seemed so sloppily implemented as originally written?

I cannot speak to any part of the 4e design, I was not involved at all.

I can speak from a general publishing perspective.  To deliver something as complex as a new edition of D&D, you have to pick some hard dates long before you have finished working on the product.  To have a book on  shelf on a given day, that book has to be in warehouses at a certain date, and to get into those warehouses it has to go on boats from China on a certain date, and to get on those boats it has to be shipped from the printer on a certain date, and to be shipped from the printer the files have to be delivered to the production facility on a certain date.

You can't wait until the game is finished and then send it to be produced.  Nobody has that much money and no business can operate with that much uncertainty.  Remember it's not just your own staff who are on the hook, it's the distributors and retailers who all need time to do their own marketing and promotion as well.  So there's always content in any large project that isn't as done as you would like it when you have to send the files to the printer.  

The complexity of the 4e project was probably 10x the complexity of the 3e project because they tried to synchronize the printed books with a suite of on-line tools.  The tragedy that struck the on-line tools team derailed that synergy and the 4e project never recovered but I'm certain that there were all sorts of interdependencies that drove the 4e team crazy.  When that happens, you triage.  I'm guessing, based on what you and others in this thread have said, that this particular system got triaged so far down the priority list that it just couldn't be fixed in time to meet the production deadline.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;741188Dancey:  (1) If your presentation is recorded, will you put it up online for others to watch after the fact?  (2) In your consideration, what was the impact of the MMO market upon TRPGs since WOW went online in 2004?

Call me Ryan, we're all friends here.

1:  I don't know if Pax records and broadcasts panels.  They totally should.  It's beyond my purview to manage that, but I bet that even if Pax doesn't, there will be shakycam footage from the audience.


2:  It has been immense.

Here's my theory.  If we take the segmentation study we did in 1999 as valid (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html), I believe that the MMO experience provides a better and more rewarding experience for two of those groups - the Power Gamers and the Thinkers than the tabletop game ever can, and I think that the Character Actors have been receiving the benefits of a lot of attention over time which has been pressuring them as well.

I believe in network externalities.  That means that I believe that the value of a game is external to the game itself, and resides in the network of players who use it.  The fundamental network unit of a tabletop RPG is the group who meets regularly physically to play it.  If that unit starts to break down, the externality of the network degrades in value rapidly.  As it loses value, the game loses value - and in this case "value" is a proxy for "activity".

After World of Warcraft shipped in 2005, everything changed.  MMOs up to that point had been a curiosity.  Ultima Online peaked at about 250k players.  EverQuest peaked at about 400k.  (http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png).  This was at a time when our data showed there were more than 5 million people who played a tabletop game at least once a year, and more than 2 million who played monthly.  But World of Warcraft blew that model apart.  It generated nearly 5 million players in about a 4 years (http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png).  World of Warcraft was a game that lots of tabletop RPG players deeply engaged with.  

At CCP we did some market research on EVE players, and a huge percentage of them (I think the number was 80%) had played a tabletop RPG in the past, but only about 20% of them were currently playing one monthly.  EVE is a niche game far from the ground zero of high fantasy that World of Warcraft is, but even if the same numbers applied it would still suggest that World of Warcraft had connected with a vast tabletop RPG audience.

The market effects of that change are undeniable.  Sales of RPGs from all publishers cratered after 2005.  The market today is, I would estimate, less than half the size, and maybe as little as 1/3rd the size as it was in 2003.  It was an even more catastrophic collapse than the mid-90s meltdown that lead to TSR's sale to Wizards of the Coast.

Today, the player network for tabletop RPGs is broken.  With a lot of Thinkers, Power Gamers and increasingly Character Actors switching to MMOs and playing less (or no) tabletop RPGs, the types of groups that used to exist are malfunctioning.  D&D, Pathfinder, and most tabletop RPGs are designed around the assumption that there are players who can and will fill those various "roles" in the group.  But if all the Power Gamers are gone, suddenly there are lot fewer people who want to play Bob the Barbarian who hits hard but doesn't solve puzzles.  The puzzles used to be solved by Sally the Sneaky, but she's not showing up anymore, so the clues the GM weaves into the narrative go unnoticed.  The frustration that Gary the GM, a Storyteller experiences are massive.  Gary's irritation level is high and that makes him less and less willing to go to the trouble to host and prepare for the game.  

The old assumptions about who will play these games, with what intensity, and how often, are broken.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;741199I am curious, what game do you think the market wanted at the time?

See my above post about the collapse of the tabletop RPG market driven by MMOs.  That's the context for my answer to this question.

During the collapse, I believe the players engaged in what I call "a flight to quality".  This is an effect common in shrinking markets where everyone but one producer dies, but the surviving producer may become larger and stronger than it was before the die-off.

As the network degraded, players who wanted to remain active had two choices.  They could recruit all new players to join them, or they could switch games to join a network that had enough nodes to permit them to remain active players.

Starting new groups is hard.  Some folks do it without even realizing that they're working miracles, and they look around and wonder why everyone doesn't do what they do.  Most people just can't.

So, with the collapse under way, what did most players do?

They gravitated towards the largest and most valuable player network, which was D&D.  But D&D had broken with it's network externality.  4e was different enough from all previous editions that it was essentially a "new game".  It didn't have a strong player network.  The strongest network was the 3.0/3.5 network, which in context wasn't even that old.  (Unlike say the 1e network compared to the 3e network in 2000).  Pathfinder squarely established itself as the new root for the 3.0/3.5 player network, and it got big enough quickly enough to displace other potential challengers (via leveraging the Dragon and Dungeon customer base).

So the flight to quality lead to Pathfinder, not 4e.

My answer to the question is "they wanted the 3.5 game", and they picked the best available option.  But my larger point is that the "they" had changed radically between 2000 and 2005.

Quote from: Dodger;741135Ryan - With hindsight, do you wish you'd made the OGL more restrictive?

No.  And now I'll actually bring this massive digression back on point of the thread.  {magic!}

First, I have to remind people that if the OGL had had meaningful restrictions is is very doubtful that it would have worked.  People at the time were absolutely convinced it was a secret plot by Wizards to destroy all competition in the category, to steal everyone's intellectual property.  It was, in their minds, the One Ring to Rule Them All.

Any appearance that the license had trap doors would have scared off the vast majority of potential publishers.  Look at White Wolf - they created a whole new division to make D20 projects, just on the off chance that somehow we had cleverly hidden the dagger behind our backs.  Some companies, like Palladium, have NEVER done an OGL product, even though a "d20 RIFTS" book could have saved Palladium a lot of heartache.

Second, we had no ability to do anything with a review & approval process anyway.  There was no mass of talented and trained brand managers sitting around my offices at Wizards with their thumbs up their asses waiting for something to do.  Everyone was heads down busy every minute of every day.  60 hour work weeks were not uncommon.  If we'd tried to dip our toe into the stream of new products and assert some kind of authority, we'd have drowned, the process would have been totally arbitrary, and we'd have been litigated into a smoking crater.

Thirdly, and by golly on topic, restrictions on content kind of defeated the whole intent.  For the same reason that Wizards doesn't care if people do retro clones, they didn't care if people published a lot of nonsense for D20.  Because at the end of the day, if you are sitting on the most valuable player network, all the activity in the whole market will eventually accrue to your benefit.  No team of managers sitting in isolation in Renton south of Seattle could possibly know what niches and itches waiting to be scratched existed in the global market for tabletop RPGs.  Central planning, as 80 years of Soviet economics proved, doesn't work.

If there's a meaningfully large number of people who will jump through hoops to play an "old school" retro clone of 1e, that's critical information that Wizards wants.  There's very little Wizards could do to uncover that information short of letting people just make whatever the hell they wish, and then seeing what sells and what doesn't.

Wizards should have the "retro-clone" market under a microscope, at least to the extent that they can figure out if it's real, or just a small group of really loud people.  If it is real, that is something worth knowing.  And if it's just a small group of really loud people, that's something worth knowing too.

If the company threw cease & desist letters around at anything it found offensive or "dangerous" to its intellectual property, it would squash the kind of innovation required to explore all the market niches, and scratch all the itches.  And it wouldn't likely sell one more D&D book, or generate one more dollar of D&D license revenue.  It's all downside, and no upside.

Eventually I think Wizards will want to clear the ground and fight to define its rights to copyright roleplaying game materials.  The recent string of court cases in the US that are expanding the concept of copyright to "worlds" beyond "works" is all in their favor.  But they're not going to fight that battle over OSRIC, for goodness' sake.  They're going to fight over something worth tens of millions of dollars.  The target for that fight doesn't even exist yet, but if it arises, Wizards wants to keep its powder dry.  Remember that copyright, unlike trademark, does not lose enforceability if it is not defended.

Quote from: RSDancey;741257There is a small audience of people who have a socially strong gaming group that can withstand the pressures of distance, who want to keep playing their tabletop game but can't physically meet.  For that small audience, virtual games are a great solution.  I just don't think there are enough such people to make a business that makes sense.

I think you are broadly correct. I think there's scope for a small business to succeed running a virtual tabletop - Roll20 seems to be riding high - but nothing on the scale that it was ever really worth Wizards dabbling in that business.

In particular, your take seems to fit my personal experience - I'm currently running a Roll20 game, but it's specifically to let folks who previously gamed together some years ago to play together despite geographic distance, and we each have at least one face-to-face games going on as well, and I'm reasonably sure that if a scheduling crisis came up which made one of us have to pick between one of our face-to-face games and the Roll20 game I don't think there's a single one of us, myself included, who wouldn't sacrifice the Roll20 game first.

I think hybridisation at the table has potential for games with a strong combat component. I think they'd be of lesser utility for games with less of a combat focus; though I do use computers for such things, it's almost exclusively to keep notes organised and do stuff which I'd otherwise do on paper, rather than running game mechanics which would be awkward and cumbersome to do without a computer.

Re: Skill challenges

QuoteWhen that happens, you triage.  I'm guessing, based on what you and others in this thread have said, that this particular system got triaged so far down the priority list that it just couldn't be fixed in time to meet the production deadline.

Heh, given that they related to a non-combat aspect of 4E I think that's almost certainly the case.

Quote from: RSDancey;741260Here's my theory.  If we take the segmentation study we did in 1999 as valid (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html), I believe that the MMO experience provides a better and more rewarding experience for two of those groups - the Power Gamers and the Thinkers than the tabletop game ever can, and I think that the Character Actors have been receiving the benefits of a lot of attention over time which has been pressuring them as well.

I think you're 100% right about the Power Gamers and the Thinkers, there's more or less nothing a tabletop game can offer character optimisers and combat tacticians that a computer game can't equal or do better at.

I think the Character Actors will only ever be partially satisfied with MMOs, by and large. The thing about an MMO is that the gameworld can't really change in response to your actions; you're inevitably a very small fish in a very big pond, and whilst you can have a storyline unfolding in them (as in Star Wars: The Old Republic), no particular storyline outcome can get the benefit of being "canon" because for however many people choose option A, there's just as many people choosing option B. (And if it actually makes more sense for your character to choose option C and the designers didn't code it in, you can't take it.) So if you're the sort of Character Actor who wants anyone other than the player characters in your immediate vicinity to actually respond to and riff on your acting in an organic fashion, you're screwed.

It's that reactivity and ability of a tabletop referee and player group to flip the script in response to unexpected decisions which I think is the key advantage of tabletop RPGs. You really can't ever replicate that in a computer game unless you first invent a true AI capable of exercising genuine heuristic decision-making and creativity, and develop it to the point where that AI can be a GM for a player base of millions. (In other words, you'd need to come up with an invention whose implications are so staggering, its impact on our hobby would really be kind of irrelevant in the face of the radical reshaping of our society it'd spur).

That's where I think RPG publishers need to find their new segmentation breakdown - find out what different people specifically want from that unique advantage, and make those things the heart of your marketing and the basis for how you work on growing your network externalities. A customer might have a Power Gamer itch which tabletop RPGs can't scratch to the extent that WoW can, but they may (for instance) have a "Thought Experimenter" or "Storyteller" motivation which your marketing could better target. If you focus on that and the small-group activity aspect (contrasting to the rather faceless experience of MMOs, where either you're completely lost in an ocean of millions of strangers or, at best, you're in a drama-ridden guild of dozens of people of whom you only really like a fraction), then I think there's scope for traction.

Quote from: Warthur;741291It's that reactivity and ability of a tabletop referee and player group to flip the script in response to unexpected decisions which I think is the key advantage of tabletop RPGs.

Yes, I agree strongly.  This is why I think that Ron Edwards hit the nail on the head when he started asking questions about why RPGs didn't give narrative authority to the players.  

The ability of the tabletop game to alter it's rules, it's environment, it's characters and it's challenges on the fly to tell great stories collaboratively is something the MMOs are decades away from achieving.

It is also a good place to stand if the network is reduced to Storytellers, some Character Actors, and a greatly reduced contingent of Power Gamers and Thinkers.

Quote from: RSDancey;741257I just don't think there are enough such people to make a business that makes sense.

I think Ryan Dancey is missing the point.

Tabletop roleplaying games are a specific thing.

1) A group of players
2) One is a referee
3) The others are players playing individual characters
4) The referee describe the setting in which the character are in.
5) The players describe their actions and the referee adjudicates them.
6) The effects of the previous session are generally carried over the next if playing same the campaign.

Change these elements you have a different game.

I think it boils down to whether a person thinks that tabletop roleplaying games as described above will exist at all in 20 years.

I think it will in the same way that theater survived despite movies. That movies survived despite television.

Ryan Dancey accurately states there is a limit to the complexity that the human referee can handle. Also that through the use of computer technology, that human referees will be able to handle more complexity.

Which is fine except the point of the game isn't complexity. The point of the game is to develop the sense that you are actually there in another place and time as that character.

Peter Jackson's rendered the Battle of Helms Deep in fine detail in the Lord of the Rings Two Tower. It was a vivid spectacle enjoy by millions.

Yet, Shakepeare in the Prologue to Henry V wrote this.

QuoteSo great an object: can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt?

And later his implores his audience to let their imaginations go to work in bringing the conflict of two monarchs and the battle to life.

And today Shakespeare is still performed, often with the latest in technology

I think roleplaying, entertainment where people actively play individual characters, it going to expand in many new ways that will be fun and exciting.

But just like Shakepeare continues to bring excitement and enjoyment to many today as it did in the 16th century. I think Gygax's and Arneson's game in its original form will continue as well for a long long time.

Can you build a business off of that? There are companies whoes business is to perform Shakespeare. No where near the size of Warner Brothers, Disney, or Paramount. But then their point is to perform Shakespeare.

Quote from: Warthur;741291I think you are broadly correct. I think there's scope for a small business to succeed running a virtual tabletop - Roll20 seems to be riding high - but nothing on the scale that it was ever really worth Wizards dabbling in that business.

Barring some fad, tabletop roleplaying in its original form will never challenge the newer forms of roleplaying that have sprung up. It require too much of an active involvement of participants.

Quote from: RSDancey;741294Yes, I agree strongly.  This is why I think that Ron Edwards hit the nail on the head when he started asking questions about why RPGs didn't give narrative authority to the players.  

The ability of the tabletop game to alter it's rules, it's environment, it's characters and it's challenges on the fly to tell great stories collaboratively is something the MMOs are decades away from achieving.

It is also a good place to stand if the network is reduced to Storytellers, some Character Actors, and a greatly reduced contingent of Power Gamers and Thinkers.

Roleplaying Games didn't give narrative authority because the game was never about the narrative. It about the EXPERIENCE of being in another place as a character. Do you go to the Grand Tetons to create the story of you hiking. No you go there to experience the grandeur of the landscape. The story comes afterward when you tell all your friends about your experience.

That the point Ron Edwards, you, and far too many miss.

There are people by the power of their voice alone can transport their listeners to another place and time. You don't need a stage, or film, or a screen to make this happen. The words alone are enough.

With tabletop role playing, Gygax and Arneson develop a way for a person make his listener participants. To actively explore and experience the world that exists in only in the imagination of the referee. By just using words, pen, paper, and dice.

Now if a gamer is not happy, like Ron Edwards, perhaps what going on is that his gamemaster is presenting an experience he doesn't like. Just like people are all excited about hiking the Grand Teton only to find out that the mosquito, the cold nights, and hard ground to sleep on really sucks for them.

Quote from: Warthur;741291I think you're 100% right about the Power Gamers and the Thinkers, there's more or less nothing a tabletop game can offer character optimisers and combat tacticians that a computer game can't equal or do better at.

Permanent consequences? Obviously MMOs tend to lack permanent death of monsters, permanent quest completion, and other world impact. But they also lack permanent death of Player Characters (at most there might be permanent equipment loss), so the sense of accomplishment for success is very different and much more limited than for an RPG.
To the extent that I'm a 'power gamer' I get my satisfaction from winning, when failure is a real possibility. MMOs don't seem to have failure as a possibility, you can't ever be permanently defeated, the heroes can't fail and see the dark lord conquer the world unless it's a pre-scripted inevitable event.

edit: The Warcraft type MMO is also very weak on political shenanigans, on PC/NPC roleplay, and even PC/PC roleplay. Thinkers may not care about roleplay, but they may well care about the ability to manipulate the political environment as well as the battlespace.

Quote from: RSDancey;741294Yes, I agree strongly.  This is why I think that Ron Edwards hit the nail on the head when he started asking questions about why RPGs didn't give narrative authority to the players.  

Because it breaks immersion. MMOs also tend to be terrible at immersion, for the opposite reason. With an MMO I as player can't have the impact on the world I as my character should be able to, everything resets. With narrative games I as player have far more world impact than I as my character should be able to.

This is where traditional tabletop RPGs can shine; I as my character can do exactly as much as he should be able to. That's what I play for.
This is why linear railroads are problematic of course, that agency gets taken away.

Edit: Agree with Rob Conley above. BTW Paizo's success with Pathfinder seems built mostly on appealing to charbuild powergamers in a post-MMO world, so clearly there is still a demand there. :D From things Lisa Stevens has said she doesn't seem to be a crunch-oriented powergamer type herself, but her company's game caters to them more than any other game on the market, just as 3e did previously.

DM Vince's Retoclone (Mazes & Minotaurs?) claims to be the only Wotc certified retroclone IIRC.  He said he contacted Wotc legal thru back channels and they issued him a letter stating that his game is not in copyright infringement.  I am inclined to believe him.  

This does not mean that the others are lawsuit proof (they may be judgement proof though).

Cheers

Quote from: RSDancey;741294Yes, I agree strongly.  This is why I think that Ron Edwards hit the nail on the head when he started asking questions about why RPGs didn't give narrative authority to the players.

I agree to an extent, but I also think there's a legitimate place for groups who prefer the traditional division of narrative authority (players have authority over the PCs' decision-making process, GMs have authority over how the world reacts), not least because in my experience not many groups actually want an equal division of narrative authority. Lots of people prefer to occupy their characters and explore the GM's world or scenario, I think in part because that way it feels less like the gameworld is designed by committee, whereas worlds and scenarios designed by an individual GM will reflect their individual tastes and vision and consequently feel more distinctive and characterful.

I think a strength of TTRPGs that CRPGs (and particular, MMOs) don't touch goes beyond player impact on the world.  While the GM retains narrative authority, there is a collaborative narrative building that goes on in TTRPGs that allows players to influence the direction the GM takes the narrative.  The high level fighter that builds a keep doesn't only change the landscape around him (physically, politically, and militarily) but also drives the direction of the narrative into whole new areas (defending the keep, power politics, etc.).  Even on a smaller scale, the GM even tailors or tweaks adventures based on player goals (type of loot, fulfilling a character arc, etc.).

Wayyyy off topic. But did the original Neverwinter AOL MMO have permanent character death?

Yeah I'm much more a power gamer than any other style and I like rpgs much more than MMOs.  After playing MMOS for years you never really care about your characters or your stuff or even your kills. It's just a perpetual ladder climb.  Eventually you realize the reason you like a particular MMO is because of your online friends.  And those folks just don't count for as much as real life friends.  The live rpg sessions are more dynamic so more challenging.   The main reason I still MMO game is for schedule reasons.   It's an acceptable second place.

VTT play is a better second place for me.  It more closely resembles live play and all the participants are thinking human beings with the ability to adapt.   Fantasy Grounds does most of what Ryan wants but at a high programming cost for the GM.  I hope they work on fixing that.

It didn't take long to get back to Forge la-la-land, I see.

Quote from: Bunch;741366VTT play is a better second place for me.  It more closely resembles live play and all the participants are thinking human beings with the ability to adapt.   Fantasy Grounds does most of what Ryan wants but at a high programming cost for the GM.  I hope they work on fixing that.

Only if you have to make a ruleset. Otherwise it just a matter of filling out forms and dropping images in the right folder.

Quote from: estar;741369Only if you have to make a ruleset. Otherwise it just a matter of filling out forms and dropping images in the right folder.

Yeah I don't get the whole vtts are nicht gut thing; I mean, I'm 500, 800 and 3500 miles from people I care about greatly and wish to game with as well, none of us want to get our game on via WoW for the very reasons Dancey outlines, and yet, per him I have no good alternative.

Fortunately facts are on my side.  Witness not only one but several good, and well-supported VTTs.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;741370Yeah I don't get the whole vtts are nicht gut thing; I mean, I'm 500, 800 and 3500 miles from people I care about greatly and wish to game with as well, none of us want to get our game on via WoW for the very reasons Dancey outlines, and yet, per him I have no good alternative.

Fortunately facts are on my side.  Witness not only one but several good, and well-supported VTTs.

Agreed and while it is tech you need to learn, the way you use it is seamless with a given person's tabletop roleplaying hobby. You can go from VTT to a in-person session and back again without missing a beat.

I personally think it is the one of two best kind of tech to have a positive impact on tabletop RPGs.

The other? Tablet devices, and i point to things like PDF readers, the Crawler's Companion, Diconomicon, and Inspiration Pad Pro (random tables). Sure some people like books over silicon, would prefer to manual look up a table to roll on. However if you put that person side by side with the person using the tablet. They are doing the same damn thing, just using different means.

The only thing I am a bonafide Luddite on is the use of physical dice over a dice roller program while physically at the table. I really want to run a game of the DCC RPG just so I can use the Crawlers Companion, it that good.

Quote from: estar;741369Only if you have to make a ruleset. Otherwise it just a matter of filling out forms and dropping images in the right folder.

Oh and the newest version of Fantasy Grounds has a generic core ruleset that is about as sophiscated as roll20 current character sheet (i.e. not very but can record basic info).

Quote from: thedungeondelver;741370Fortunately facts are on my side.  Witness not only one but several good, and well-supported VTTs.

I got the sense he was talking about VTTs as a business, and not just as a small business but one on the scale someone like Hasbro would be interested in.

Fantasy Grounds, Maptools, Roll20, etc., are cool and all, but I'm guessing their combined user base is rather negligible.  And it's a business where you have to compete with people just using a google hangout and calling it good.

If we look at some recent RPG kickstarters, we may notice a trend of successful products with 500 or less backers.  That's still more than enough to pay for the printing and distribution of a game for someone who has it has a secondary income.  So if these 500 purchasers want to play, they either need to recruit a group locally (and the odds are, there will be no one locally who also bought the game) or they need to meet up online using the same social media channels that brought the backers together in the first place.  For these smaller games, something like google hangout with roll20 is a fantastic option (and perhaps the only option) to actually play the game.

I imagine a lot of OSR games are similar in that finding people online is the only way some people can play them.

All of this is far, far too small for Hasbro to go after and a horrible prospect considering the people might just opt out of a Hasbro VTT subscription and just play D&DN via Google Hangout.

Quote from: NathanIW;741423So if these 500 purchasers want to play, they either need to recruit a group locally (and the odds are, there will be no one locally who also bought the game)

Surely that's only a problem if the game assumes every player has purchased a copy?

Quote from: Warthur;741439Surely that's only a problem if the game assumes every player has purchased a copy?

That doesn't really have anything to do with my point.  And I didn't mean to imply it was a problem.  My point was that if a small seller sells 500 copies of a game across the world (even if it's primarily centred across the English speaking world) the odds of another local person being part of that 500 as well as you is pretty low.  So if you want to play this game then you either have to recruit players or find the other members of the 500 online.  Google hangout type play is perfect for this.  And it's also the only option for some OSR people.

It's just both too small and already covered by a technology company (Google) for Hasbro to get involved offering such a service.

Well, data is not the plural of anecdote, but I know seven people locally who have copies of OSRIC.  I introduced them to it by GMing it for them, and they decided to buy the book; it's how RPGs have always spread.  Word of mouth and actual play.  So a lot of the time, someone with the ruleset knows someone else with the ruleset IRL.

The "500 copies" league you're talking about would be for a relatively unsuccessful retro-clone.  Successful ones sell a few thousand copies.

Quote from: NathanIW;741445So if you want to play this game then you either have to recruit players or find the other members of the 500 online.

What about the existing players you already know from playing other games who might be persuaded to give this game a chance? Why the assumption that people don't already have a group they can introduce the game to?

Quote from: P&P;741450Well, data is not the plural of anecdote, but I know seven people locally who have copies of OSRIC.  I introduced them to it by GMing it for them, and they decided to buy the book; it's how RPGs have always spread.  Word of mouth and actual play.  So a lot of the time, someone with the ruleset knows someone else with the ruleset IRL.

The "500 copies" league you're talking about would be for a relatively unsuccessful retro-clone.  Successful ones sell a few thousand copies.

That's awesome.  My primary area of RPG interest is in d100 systems and things like this happen:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/645319106/river-of-heaven-sf-rpg?ref=category

217 backers.  Hopefully he'll sell more copies over the next couple of years.

My point though is that Hasbro/WotC needs way, way more revenue to make a virtual table top business viable.  And they'd be directly competing with excellent free tools like google hangouts.

Quote from: Warthur;741452What about the existing players you already know from playing other games who might be persuaded to give this game a chance? Why the assumption that people don't already have a group they can introduce the game to?

Warthur, you picked out a single line from my post and imagined a disagreement where there isn't one.  That persuasion can be considered to be part of what I called "recruit a group locally".  For some, an existing gaming group makes that very easy (as in it's already done).  For others, they can go online and use google hangouts to play with like minded individuals.

Here's my point:

A game publisher sells a few thousand copies (or 500 or 217) of his game across the world.

Some people find other gamers locally (including persuading their existing gaming group) and play.

Other people don't and instead find other gamers who already know and like the game and meet up online via voice chat solutions like google hangout, roll20, etc.,.

Is this really big enough to merit WotC to concentrate on as a business model?  When an actual technology company (Google) is already offering a solution for free?

That's it.

NathanIW, I agree with what you say about google hangouts.  They're a very viable way of gaming.  One hangout game I was in recently was me in Britain, two Austrialians, a New Zealander and an American from Alaska.  Time zone hell... the Aussies and New Zealander were getting up in the early hours of the morning in order to play.

People will, if that's the only way they can get their gaming fix.

Quote from: NathanIW;741453217 backers.  Hopefully he'll sell more copies over the next couple of years.

The lack of backers is down to his price point and marketing strategy.  A kickstarter for a book that costs $10 to read even in .pdf form is a very hard sell in 2014.  Unless you're a brand with a reputation your audience will recognise and a unique selling point, the only way to sell thousands of copies as a retro-clone is to offer people a free .pdf so they can try your game, play it, and learn if they like it, risk-free.

A whole lot of people will download your free .pdf and then ignore your product forever.  You have to not mind that.  Some will download your free .pdf, skim it for five minutes one Thursday lunchtime and then post a ten thousand word rant about how much it sucks.  You have to not mind that either.

Because if your game is genuinely fun, some people will play it enough to think, "I want to buy the book".  So they look to see how much the book costs.  The answer had better be under $30 in softback, under $40 in hardcover----if it's more than that then you'll start to lose significant amounts of circulation to the "that's too expensive" crowd.

I think Stars Without Number is an excellent example of how to launch a sci-fi RPG; I think the author hit all the target numbers exactly in the bull's eye.

Quote from: NathanIW;741455A game publisher sells a few thousand copies (or 500 or 217) of his game across the world.

Some people find other gamers locally (including persuading their existing gaming group) and play.

Other people don't and instead find other gamers who already know and like the game and meet up online via voice chat solutions like google hangout, roll20, etc.,.

Is this really big enough to merit WotC to concentrate on as a business model?  When an actual technology company (Google) is already offering a solution for free?

That's it.

I don't disagree with you, but there is one factor that I don't think should be overlooked. I have no hard data but with a lot of these niche games I'd be surprised if even 10% of buyers ever actually play these games, much less play regularly. A lot of people who support these things like to read the books and collect them. I'm not necessarily saying there is anything wrong with that, but it skews how to make any inferences or decisions, as a publisher, that would hinge on actual play.

One of the conclusions we can take from the massive drain from tabletop RPGs to MMOs is that the vast majority of users never wanted to roleplay; they were there for the game, and as soon as they got an alternative that better fit their preference they split.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;741482One of the conclusions we can take from the massive drain from tabletop RPGs to MMOs is that the vast majority of users never wanted to roleplay

I would suggest to you that there are more people "roleplaying" in MMOs on any given day then there are total people playing tabletop RPGs.

Check out some of the Daedalus Project research for more depth:

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/

Yes, Ryan, we're all aware that you're here to sell us Pathfinder Online.

Quote from: RSDancey;741483I would suggest to you that there are more people "roleplaying" in MMOs on any given day then there are total people playing tabletop RPGs.

Check out some of the Daedalus Project research for more depth:

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/

I'm logged in and ready to do Siege of Orgrimmar as I write this post.  I've been on RP servers for the last 7 years, and I've looked around.  No, quite frankly, the majority don't want to role-play- and there are fewer every day.  Those that do, do so in the form of Improv Theater and not as proper TRPGs offer- and they are shit at both forms.  WOW is notorious for being hostile to role-players of any sort, a trait shared across the medium (which is itself hostile to the prospect in its very structure).  So no, I don't buy it; my experience informs me so, and has consistently done so.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;741482One of the conclusions we can take from the massive drain from tabletop RPGs to MMOs is that the vast majority of users never wanted to roleplay; they were there for the game, and as soon as they got an alternative that better fit their preference they split.

Or that the market fragmented into casual and hardcore fans, and the two groups do not mingle much. Plus some substitution that you are talking about.

Quote from: dragoner;741494Or that the market fragmented into casual and hardcore fans, and the two groups do not mingle much. Plus some substitution that you are talking about.

Casual and Hardcore is the wrong cleavage considering just how many went to MMOs instead of or as primary form of RPG gameplay.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;741482One of the conclusions we can take from the massive drain from tabletop RPGs to MMOs is that the vast majority of users never wanted to roleplay; they were there for the game, and as soon as they got an alternative that better fit their preference they split.

Yeah, the few I experimented (early days) with didn't seem to have any character intensive stuff.  Most people talk out of character, etc. I was kind of shocked to see that.

I find the most narratively immersive games are text-based MUDs because the text allows for more free-form emoting and imagination that you can't get elsewhere.  That, and single-player RPGs that are story based like Bioware's stuff.

I also think that 3rd Edition being more accepting of things like builds and min-maxing was one of the reasons why it became popular.

Quote from: RSDancey;741262They gravitated towards the largest and most valuable player network, which was D&D.  But D&D had broken with it's network externality.  4e was different enough from all previous editions that it was essentially a "new game".  It didn't have a strong player network.  The strongest network was the 3.0/3.5 network, which in context wasn't even that old.  (Unlike say the 1e network compared to the 3e network in 2000).  Pathfinder squarely established itself as the new root for the 3.0/3.5 player network, and it got big enough quickly enough to displace other potential challengers (via leveraging the Dragon and Dungeon customer base).

So the flight to quality lead to Pathfinder, not 4e.

My answer to the question is "they wanted the 3.5 game", and they picked the best available option.  But my larger point is that the "they" had changed radically between 2000 and 2005.

That's interesting, that's not my perception of what happened however. As a GM I liked the release of 3e. I mean really, really, liked the release of 3e. For the first time since 0D&D was out, I could once again easily encourage players, and other GMs to create new content for the game, to contribute, to participate. For a time I was running both 3e and 0D&D games and from 2000-2004 I was running more 3e games and sessions than I was running 0D&D. Just for example, in 2004 I had exactly 2 people show up for my first 0D&D game at GenCon, and none for the second game, both my 3e games were booked full though that year.

I switched back to running more 0D&D games though, when the game forked yet again and 3.5 was released. I took a lot of criticism for running my 0D&D games, and even more for not running 3.5 games and continuing to run 3.0 games. I didn't feel the changes for balance for 3.5 were significant or even necessary, and 3.0 seemed to hold up well, at least as well as 3.5.

The schism really came after 2006, and it didn't come from MMO games. Folks friendly to WOTC and a few of the WOTC staff were openly hostile towards me on the WOTC message boards... so much so, I stopped posting new messages there, and stopped contributing to threads. In 2007 I quit the WOTC Forums, and have only visited there once or twice since in the last eight years.

WOTC made it clear that they didn't want us old gamers running games in the brave new world (tm) of 4e. Nevermind the fact that I introduced D&D to about 200 new people a year (and still do) without really even trying hard, just running a few games now and then, both locally here, and at conventions.

They also turned their backs on the d20 publishers and stiffed them royally by creating a restrictive new license with almost none of the benefits that d20 or the OGL provided. They shattered what remained of their own market by shafting their most ardent and loyal fans, all the guys and gals that had spent countless hours creating new game content and supporting the WOTC core by running games using their home brew material.

They let them know without so much as an apology, that they couldn't make new content for the game anymore, not without a special new license that was very restrictive. I simply observed all this with some considerable awe at the stupidity being displayed.

The MMO's also took their chunk of players in addition to all of this as well, as gamers who wanted to play in teams would get together online and could at least pvp other players at will if they could bait them into the arena. These still didn't scratch the Roleplaying itch though.

Eve Online was interesting, I actually signed up for that after I found out you decided to be the Marketing Director there. It was phenomenal in both scope and scale. There was some interesting role playing going on. In late 2006 through early 2007 there was a really awesome campaign going on in the Providence region, and when that faltered, I played off and on for about the next four years. Character progression for noobs was actually too slow, and they rarely stood a chance of being victorious against veteran players, even if they used superior tactics.

The focus of combat to control stargates and starbases forced players into choke points. This also made the use of combat blobs predominate and left Independent players (almost all the noobs, and those players in small alliances) extremely vulnerable.

The changes in exploration after early 2007 made it super easy for the larger alliances to use scouts to rapidly detect large starships operating in remote regions of their territory, so even with the new deep space mining vessels like the Rorqual no advantage could be eked out with the use of such a vessel.

In 2009-2010 With the addition of several thousand new star systems only accessible via random wormholes play became interesting again, but only for a short time, about six months or so, until all the gateway wormhole systems were settled (some key ones by the large 0.0 alliances). I stopped playing in 2011, and never really went back, but not for lack of interest, but for lack of opportunity to explore deep into unknown space where none of the stoopid blob people would choose to go. There was no such space in Eve. There should be though, space is big.... reeeaaally big.

In 2012 Skyrim came out. That's been keeping me busy playing online. I also use Unity and work on making game stuff and am happy with that. Also run a few tabletop games, but not so many as in previous years, though it looks like I may be running a summer D&D camp this summer, for like 20-50 youngsters at a go, for about eight weeks while school is out.

Tabletop RPGs. Still the best, with the players and Gm's able to add in whatever they want, how they want, though still some trouble with keeping intrepretation of the mechanics, and with players that refuse the social contracts implied in the game, just to be "special" or to prove the game weak.  Don't have much time for those guys anymore.

MMO's have come along way as well, with rich and engaging storylines, and with multi-player options allowing friends and family to finally, ...at last, ...work together, to achieve common goals. It's like a brand new golden age.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;741492I'm logged in and ready to do Siege of Orgrimmar as I write this post.  I've been on RP servers for the last 7 years, and I've looked around.  No, quite frankly, the majority don't want to role-play- and there are fewer every day.  Those that do, do so in the form of Improv Theater and not as proper TRPGs offer- and they are shit at both forms.  WOW is notorious for being hostile to role-players of any sort, a trait shared across the medium (which is itself hostile to the prospect in its very structure).  So no, I don't buy it; my experience informs me so, and has consistently done so.

Rift went so far as to actually shut down the RP server for Europe during one of the recent merges. Worldwide there's now only one RP server left for the NA region.

It's just not remotely a priority for any game out there, and the few that have made it one have all largely flopped. The last mainstream MMO I know of that had any sizeable enforced RP community was Everquest, and that was maintained with a kind of ruthless zealotry that ultimately rubbed even many RP-friendly players the wrong way. Some of them crossed over to WoW in the early days, but with no administrative support for their attempts, it has largely fizzled over time.

The plain truth of the matter is that sitting around and play-acting with each other, even virtually, is something I think a great majority of people are almost instinctively uncomfortable with. Adding the anonymity involved with online play seems to actually worsen, rather than improve, chances, because then people are just even more likely to respond with homophobic obscenities.

Roleplaying is arch nerdery. On the great social ladder the only people below regular roleplayers are LARPers and Ren Faire actors.

Quote from: P&P;741462The lack of backers is down to his price point and marketing strategy.  A kickstarter for a book that costs $10 to read even in .pdf form is a very hard sell in 2014.

I completely agree.  Newt was basically relying on a small community's good will.

Quote from: Hezrou;741480I don't disagree with you, but there is one factor that I don't think should be overlooked. I have no hard data but with a lot of these niche games I'd be surprised if even 10% of buyers ever actually play these games, much less play regularly. A lot of people who support these things like to read the books and collect them. I'm not necessarily saying there is anything wrong with that, but it skews how to make any inferences or decisions, as a publisher, that would hinge on actual play.

I think it's fair to assume that a fraction of those who buy or download a game will ever end up actually playing it.  I wonder what the numbers are for D&D or Pathfinder.  I wonder what portion of WotC's DDI subscribers participated in the VTT stuff.  Probably not a lot.

Quote from: J Arcane;741531Rift went so far as to actually shut down the RP server for Europe during one of the recent merges. Worldwide there's now only one RP server left for the NA region.

It's just not remotely a priority for any game out there, and the few that have made it one have all largely flopped. The last mainstream MMO I know of that had any sizeable enforced RP community was Everquest, and that was maintained with a kind of ruthless zealotry that ultimately rubbed even many RP-friendly players the wrong way. Some of them crossed over to WoW in the early days, but with no administrative support for their attempts, it has largely fizzled over time.

The plain truth of the matter is that sitting around and play-acting with each other, even virtually, is something I think a great majority of people are almost instinctively uncomfortable with. Adding the anonymity involved with online play seems to actually worsen, rather than improve, chances, because then people are just even more likely to respond with homophobic obscenities.

Roleplaying is arch nerdery. On the great social ladder the only people below regular roleplayers are LARPers and Ren Faire actors.

Unfortunately the "stand around in high traffic public areas and force everyone to listen to your own fanfic play" has really hurt the concept of roleplaying on a RP server, because it's not really roleplaying within the construct of the game world as much as it is simming.  The only game I really know of where there are tabletop-type roleplayers of the "act like your character while you play the game" variety are in LotRO, but of course that went down the tubes when they went Free to Play.

Still, even in WoW or Rift, I find people, who if talked to in an IC manner will respond in kind, as long as you don't act like an attention-starved simmer.

Quote from: CRKrueger;741535Unfortunately the "stand around in high traffic public areas and force everyone to listen to your own fanfic play" has really hurt the concept of roleplaying on a RP server, because it's not really roleplaying within the construct of the game world as much as it is simming.  The only game I really know of where there are tabletop-type roleplayers of the "act like your character while you play the game" variety are in LotRO, but of course that went down the tubes when they went Free to Play.

Still, even in WoW or Rift, I find people, who if talked to in an IC manner will respond in kind, as long as you don't act like an attention-starved simmer.

My wife has been in a few guilds that did the Rift RP thing, and there, thanks to some of the game features, you could get a bit more advanced. With the pocket dimensions you can sort of make your own levels on a limited basis, and some of the better GMs would make up plots to fit existing content.

On the whole though, I find the difficulty is that players just don't have the power to really create or influence content in most games. Ryzom's about the only one I know of that had a level editor with a GM role, the first of it's kind in the genre I think, but that game was an odd duck from the start. Several other games have included content creation tools since, but I think even the new Neverwinter game is a strictly hands-off affair when it comes time to actually playing user-generated content.

The result is that there's no real drama or conflict possible in most games that will actually be reflected by the game. You basically just have to work around the game to such an extent that I find myself wondering why they don't just run a tabletop game. My wife's current guild actually does just that: they've largely abandoned guild RP, and instead they have several on-going campaigns running on the RaidCall server.

Quote from: NathanIW;741455Other people don't and instead find other gamers who already know and like the game and meet up online via voice chat solutions like google hangout, roll20, etc.,.

Or they pitch the game to their pre-existing voice chat buddies, if they already have such a group.

In general I've found that people who use voice chat solutions are, with rare exceptions like the FLAILSNAILS/ConstantCon stuff aside, not actually complete strangers to each other but are longterm buddies who are using the solution because geographic distance means their group can't meet in the flesh any more.

But either way, I think the audience for a 500 copy niche game and how people recruit players for that is entirely orthogonal as to whether the virtual tabletop market is large enough to be worth Hasbro's time. People play mega-selling games over those things too. I think the real question as to whether VTTs are viable is how many people fall into the following categories:

a) Folks who want to game regularly with old buddies who live an inconveniently long way away.
b) Folks who want to game with strangers online, for whatever motive.

That's your market - forget the specific game, tying a virtual tabletop to a specific game is pointless unless the game is, like 4E, specifically designed to be used via a virtual tabletop that's tailored to that game's needs. (Given that this turned out to be something of a debacle even when you set aside the absolutely awful murder-suicide that impacted the DDI team, I think it will be a cold day in Hell before Wizards decide to go that route again.)

I also think the market of people who are super-duper hyped about a specific niche game which they can't convince anyone to try out in the flesh but are so determined to play it anyway that they'll gladly game with total strangers on the Internet in order to try it out is too small to even be worth tracking. I just don't see many people doing that outside of occasional online convention play. I know plenty of gamers who don't go online to game because they're already satisfied with their face-to-face group or groups, and if their buddies don't want to play Obscure Game X then nine times out of ten they'll just let OGX gather dust on their shelf.

I know literally no gamers in my extended circle of gaming acquaintances who are really keen on the idea of playing with total strangers online; a substantial number of the gamers I know aren't really keen on playing with total strangers at cons, after all.

This is all anecdote, of course, and real data on the issue would be useful. But I really don't think microniche games are even relevant to the discussion. As Ryan said, VTTs are a perfect solution for people who want to keep the old group gaming when the members are geographically dispersed, but for everyone else it's a distant second best. The people most likely to need to use a VTT are people who live in small towns and rural areas where the population density is low enough that they honestly can't get a face-to-face group together, even if they properly try to recruit people rather than sitting at home sighing. The thing about low-population areas? They have a low population. By definition, not many people live there, which means not many customers, which means not enough of a market to make it worth Wizards' time to focus on them.

Quote from: RSDancey;741483I would suggest to you that there are more people "roleplaying" in MMOs on any given day then there are total people playing tabletop RPGs.

Check out some of the Daedalus Project research for more depth:

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/

In my experience a lot of people doing that are effectively using the MMO as a glorified chat server providing a medium and a context to huddle in a corner and have dramatic conversations, though. It's not roleplaying which actually engages with the game itself, it's just something that happens on the sidelines.

And as pointed out, MMOs are closing their RP servers left, right and centre. I give that commercial reality far more weight than the Daedalus project because Daedalus was a survey, and whilst people might say they want roleplaying, that doesn't mean that's what they actually want.

Quote from: RSDancey;741483I would suggest to you that there are more people "roleplaying" in MMOs on any given day then there are total people playing tabletop RPGs.

Check out some of the Daedalus Project research for more depth:

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/

Hate to say it. But that is about as bogus as it gets.

The amount of real role playing on any MMO is nearly zero. MUDs are a totally different matter. But we are focusing here on graphical MMOs. From brief business experience and A-LOT of hands on experience. What you see is more akin to most social MUCKs. Mainly people sitting around talking in character. Occasionally you will see something more intensive with actual poses and whatnod. But that devolves right back to social MU**'s and is near across the board improv theater.

If the definition of role playing is that loose then sorry part 2. youd have to include every board game considered to fasciliate RPing. and at the pinnacle of that is Arkham Horror which board gamers fairly regularly cite as fasciliating storytelling Role play. And theres many more than just that. And all should then be counted as tabletop role playing if the same broad spectrum is being applied to MMOs.

Players tend to gravitate to PC and MMOs because they lack viable local gaming groups. Give them an alternative and they may take it. Or they may not.

That is my alternative viewpoint on the subject from personal experience.

I'm surprised most people missed the fact that Dancy posted "Roleplaying" in quotes, which could mean that he thinks the act of playing a game labeled an RPG is "roleplaying", and not the term of actually acting in character.

Quote from: JRT;741559I'm surprised most people missed the fact that Dancy posted "Roleplaying" in quotes, which could mean that he thinks the act of playing a game labeled an RPG is "roleplaying", and not the term of actually acting in character.

I noticed and as I've argued over on BGG far too often. Some peoples idea of RPG/roleplaying is so broad as to be undefinable.

Quote from: Warthur;741548In my experience a lot of people doing that are effectively using the MMO as a glorified chat server providing a medium and a context to huddle in a corner and have dramatic conversations, though. It's not roleplaying which actually engages with the game itself, it's just something that happens on the sidelines.

And as pointed out, MMOs are closing their RP servers left, right and centre. I give that commercial reality far more weight than the Daedalus project because Daedalus was a survey, and whilst people might say they want roleplaying, that doesn't mean that's what they actually want.

It hard to roleplay when your ability to impact the world around you is limited.

The reason why RPers are using the MMO as a chat server is because literally the only thing they can impact is the social network that surrounds and connects them to their fellow players.

Otherwise Stormwind will remain Stormwind, Ogrimmar will be still Ogrimmar not matter how powerful or influential a person is.

Now I guess Ryan with the Pathfinder MMORPG is going to try to make it more dynamic. But even then it you either stuck with the scripted options or some type of mass voting (by successful actions or just outright votes). Either way there is still a distinct lack of scope and ranges to your accomplishments.

For me personally, I have no problem roleplaying in MMORPGs. However my trick is my roleplaying is part of my interaction with human players. Fellow players are the only aspect of the game that will respond to how I am acting.

Most every time I went on WoW servers it was colourful characters running from point a to point b, hitting stuff, killing it, collecting their stuff and going back to point a to redeem 12 red wolf flowers or whatever. Then repeat.

WoW might have you playing a character in a specific role (human fighter, elf mage etc) but after character creation it's about going places, killing stuff and going other places to kill more stuff, get slightly better at doing it, then repeat. Now while that's fun for a while, I grew out of that kind of play in D&D/Whatever in my early teens.

I found the whole WoW experience an absolute grind, and whilst I saw a few people stood around chatting in what I assumed was character/role playing, it was hard to retain interest when they started emoting or breaking out into group dancing or whatever. I don't recall my 29th level fighter dancing for any reason when I played D&D. Maybe I was doing it wrong.

In other words, WoW is fine for those that want to run round and kill stuff - I get it . You jump in, collect things, kill stuff, do quests which involve collecting and killing. There's no set up, no getting everyone together, you just sit in front of screen and play.

That's fine, but I wouldn't call it roleplaying.

World of Warcraft, D&D Online, EVE, - they're all video games.  There's no-one to play a role to.  There's no impact on the world.  Beyond you, and what you have, the server doesn't go "Oh!  Oh, okay, well, you did that.  That's a thing I'll take note of, and bring back later or make a part of the landscape now," or adjust for your tactics, or appreciate what you're doing.

They're as much a "role playing games" as Black Tiger.

Yes, they have RPG trappings.

No, they're not RPGs.

On the other hand, VTTs when used to play RPGs are.

Of course, like all language, the definition of the RPG may be changing over time.  It already has with the introduction of the CRPG, for instance.  The majority will end up ruling in the long term.  (And technically speaking, role-play is equally role-assumption, and it doesn't require having an audience).

The big thing I wonder about is the viability of MMOs.  The scuttlebutt online in computer game circles is that MMOs have shallow features and people are looking for something more, and that elements such as Free to Play aren't helping things along.  Everybody now tends to be cynical, predicting failures of new MMOs and lamenting that some game companies should stick to strengths like single-player games with huge open worlds like Skyrim or narrative-heavy things like Bioware's games.

I think part of the future may be smaller multiplayer games as well as a hybridization of single and multiplayer.  MOBA seem to have all the stuff the powergamers want without a grind, especially since there's an e-sports scene building.  Games like Left 4 Dead and Borderlands are showing how you can combine a stronger narrative with multiplayer, and a lot of games are now focusing on player-built content thanks to the rise of Minecraft, Day Z, and other games.  

I think the future will end up being much different than anybody expects...

Quote from: GameDaddy;741515That's interesting, that's not my perception of what happened however.

The schism really came after 2006, and it didn't come from MMO games.

Your impressions of what was happing inside the TRPG hobby mirrors my own.

But the reason Wizards of the Coast did the 4e project was because D&D had declined in volume precipitously.  In fact, it had been experiencing problems internally for quite some time.

I have a confidential source who was one of the people making the decisions about strategy for D&D who confirmed to me that 3.5 was put into production because sales of 3.0 were "unsatisfactory".  I don't really know what that means, tbh, but this person's view was that the business was declining year over year (which is not surprising, as that is exactly what 1e and 2e had done), and Wizards' leadership was not prepared to defend the business cycle as "normal".  

So 3.5 was pushed forward in time from when it had been planned by almost 2 years, and its introduction was so accelerated that it caught a lot of the 3rd party market off guard, resulting in a huge mismatch between editions.  Consumers predictably didn't want to buy much of the "old" product when the "new" game was released and that created a market disruption which broke a lot of companies (and put a lot of products into landfills).

Then Wizards did it again with 4e.  I have much less visibility into the 4e strategies than the 3.5e strategies but what I do know correlates very strongly with the idea that 3.5's "success" was brief - maybe more brief than the 3.0 window.  Since 3.5 was essentially just a tune-up to 3.0, and it had not produced a result that was satisfactory, 4e had to be much much more than just 3.75 - logically you can't justify 3.75 if your goal is a substantially larger business than 3.5, since 3.5 didn't generate a substantially larger business than 3.0.

I believe that the problems Wizards had with 3.5 were less related to 3.5, and much more related to the fact that coincidentally World of Warcraft generated 5 million players, and a plethora of other MMOs followed it catering to millions more players.  I justify that opinion by looking at what Wizards actually did with 4e, which is make a game clearly influenced by MMO designs, with a strategy that emphasized on-line play of the game.  I have to conclude that Wizards internal data (which I suspect is quite illuminating) showed them that MMOs, not other tabletop RPGs, were the source of their problems, and they attempted to redesign D&D to counterattack.

As I've said elsewhere I don't fault them for that decision.  It was gutsy.  It was data-driven (I believe).  It may even have been the "right" decision - if the game they ended up producing had been a better fit for player desires than what they did release, it may have been more successful.  

The release of 4e and the treatment of the 3rd party publishers, and the stress the 4e release put on the community should all be case studies.  I think we can all see that Wizards thinks they made mistakes since the 5e strategy seems almost totally built around the idea that unification of the D&D community is Job Number One.  The first stage of getting healthy is admitting you have a problem, and Wizards is admitting they have a problem.

QuoteEve Online was interesting, I actually signed up for that after I found out you decided to be the Marketing Director there.

Wow, that's humbling.  Thank you.

RyanD

Quote from: thedungeondelver;741596They're as much a "role playing games" as Black Tiger.

Yes, they have RPG trappings.

No, they're not RPGs.

On the other hand, VTTs when used to play RPGs are.

I disagree, they focus on the playing of individual characters in a way that the player invests in his character. The investment in a single character is what sets roleplaying games apart from wargames.

In 1974 there was just one roleplaying game on the planet and that was Dungeon and Dragons. Today there are multiple families of roleplaying games with dozens of examples within in each families including nearly possible hybrid.

To be absolutely clear Dungeons & Dragons and related games are distinct from CRPGs, MMORPGs, LARPS, Storygames. I call this family of games of tabletop roleplaying.

To illustrate my definition of tabletop roleplaying games is

It is game where players play individual characters whose actions are adjudicated by a human referee using dice, rules and a setting.

CRPGs in contrast are
A game where a player plays an individual character who actions are adjudicated by a software program using rules and random probabilities and a setting.

MMORPGs are
A game where multiple players plays individual characters who actions are adjudicated by a a software program using rules, random probabilities, and a setting.

LARPS are
A game where multiple players plays an individual character who actions are acted out in-person using a set of rules taking place within a setting.

They are all roleplaying game but their characteristics and choices of medium forces various compromises and confer distinct advantages compared to tabletop roleplaying.

I am zealous advocate of tabletop roleplaying as it own thing because I played MMORPGs heavily starting with Ultima Online. I played the earliest and lastest CRPGs, I ran LARP events, and own a LARP chapter for several years.

Exposed to the variety of roleplaying as opened my eyes to the unique strengths of tabletop roleplaying. Conversely it has also allowed me to see the common threads that bind them together as roleplaying games.

My view is that the various forms are neither better or worse. That their design give benefits at the price of certain limitation. For example LARPS, CRPGs and MMORPGs are inflexible in how the setting is setup.  It is far easier to be in-character and roleplay in a LARP than the other forms. Tabletop roleplaying is far more flexible and dynamic than the other forms. MMORPGs and LARPs have the benefit and trouble of massive social interactions.  And so on.

But the heart of these games is the focus on the playing of a individual character over a particular scenario. That what makes all of these roleplaying games.

Quote from: estar;741608I disagree, they focus on the playing of individual characters in a way that the player invests in his character. The investment in a single character is what sets roleplaying games apart from wargames.

In 1974 there was just one roleplaying game on the planet and that was Dungeon and Dragons. Today there are multiple families of roleplaying games with dozens of examples within in each families including nearly possible hybrid.

To be absolutely clear Dungeons & Dragons and related games are distinct from CRPGs, MMORPGs, LARPS, Storygames. I call this family of games of tabletop roleplaying.

To illustrate my definition of tabletop roleplaying games is

It is game where players play individual characters whose actions are adjudicated by a human referee using dice, rules and a setting.

CRPGs in contrast are
A game where a player plays an individual character who actions are adjudicated by a software program using rules and random probabilities and a setting.

MMORPGs are
A game where multiple players plays individual characters who actions are adjudicated by a a software program using rules, random probabilities, and a setting.

LARPS are
A game where multiple players plays an individual character who actions are acted out in-person using a set of rules taking place within a setting.

They are all roleplaying game but their characteristics and choices of medium forces various compromises and confer distinct advantages compared to tabletop roleplaying.

I am zealous advocate of tabletop roleplaying as it own thing because I played MMORPGs heavily starting with Ultima Online. I played the earliest and lastest CRPGs, I ran LARP events, and own a LARP chapter for several years.

Exposed to the variety of roleplaying as opened my eyes to the unique strengths of tabletop roleplaying. Conversely it has also allowed me to see the common threads that bind them together as roleplaying games.

My view is that the various forms are neither better or worse. That their design give benefits at the price of certain limitation. For example LARPS, CRPGs and MMORPGs are inflexible in how the setting is setup.  It is far easier to be in-character and roleplay in a LARP than the other forms. Tabletop roleplaying is far more flexible and dynamic than the other forms. MMORPGs and LARPs have the benefit and trouble of massive social interactions.  And so on.

But the heart of these games is the focus on the playing of a individual character over a particular scenario. That what makes all of these roleplaying games.

Suffice to say, I disagree with you.  And leave it at that.

Quote from: JRT;741559I'm surprised most people missed the fact that Dancy posted "Roleplaying" in quotes, which could mean that he thinks the act of playing a game labeled an RPG is "roleplaying", and not the term of actually acting in character.

Let's look at what the '99 Segmentation study identified as the things that Character Actors desired in the RPG experience (with the understanding that every group on that chart has "roleplaying" as a core value):

"A Character Actor is a player who most enjoys the game when it delivers a Tactical/Story Focus. This kind of person is likely to enjoy the act of theater; using voice, posture, props, etc. to express a character's actions and dialog. This player will have a character that makes sub-optimal choices (from an external perspective) to ensure that the character's actions are "correct" from the perspective of the character's motivations, ethics, and knowledge."

My contention is that these kinds of players are increasingly well served by MMOs.  Yes, there are millions of people who play MMOs as treadmills - they grind raids to get better gear to grind harder raids to get better gear.  (For those who don't know, that's what Bradley's comments about getting ready to run the Siege of Ogrimmar mean).

But consider the desires of the Character Actors and the kinds of things you're seeing in MMOs today.  Lots and lots of costumes.  Pets.  Housing which has almost no in-game mechanical effect.  Emotes which are becoming increasingly complex.  Music systems (there are bands in Lord of the Rings Online and an annual Weathertop Music Festival).  Many, many, many people are in open revolt against the "Build of the Week" or "Fit of the Month" - statistically derived "best" choices for character development.  These rebels want the freedom to make characters they find appealing and reject the consensus that unless they strictly follow the most up-to-date build they are "doing it wrong".

That's one level.  Then there's another level which is conflating "playing a role" with "roleplaying".  This is where I think there is tremendously more roleplaying in MMOs than people in this thread are acknowledging.

If you ask players of MMOs about their characters, they give you the same kinds of answers you get about characters in tabletop RPGs.  "I play an elf druid".  (Yes, a segment of the population will give you an answer derived from their gear grinding raiding guild perspective - "I'm DPS" or "I'm a tank" or "I'm a healer".  But if you ask them one more level of depth, you'll get the "I play an elf druid" answer.)

Until these characters become completely committed to the gear grinding raid cycle, their players can usually give you a pretty cohesive narrative of what their characters are doing which sounds exactly like the answers you'll get from tabletop RPGs players.  "I'm trying to fight my way through this wizards' tower to kill a lich", for example.  They may be on some side quest - "I'm trying to become popular enough with the panda bear people to get a panda bear pet", which is a subclass of things people do in tabletop RPGs all the time, with slightly different terminology.  In other words, these players have the sense that their characters are immersed in a story, in which they are playing a role, and the story's outcome is dependent on the actions of their character.

Ok, so "theme park MMOs" have a persistence problem.  They're essentially non-persistent environments.  Players in "theme park MMOs" don't impact their environment.  They might fight their way through that tower and kill that lich, but the lich will respawn and the story from the perspective of the lich never changes no matter how many times the player characters kill it.

But the "sandbox MMOs" have solved this problem.  Instead of having the lich in the tower be an NPC that respawns ad infinitum, in a "sandbox MMO" the lich should be a player character, and killing it should cause that player some meaningful amount of pain.  In fact, it should be possible to tear that tower down and drive that lich out of the area completely.  Maybe not all in one go, but there should be a reasonable pathway for one group of players to displace another group of players persistently.  If you expand that idea to as many game systems as possible, you create an environment that is much more like a tabletop RPG in terms of the players' ability to meaningfully change the world their characters are living in.

Even some of the theme park MMOs are driving towards this outcome.  In Elder Scrolls Online, for example, the game actually alters the environment on a character by character basis to reflect their past actions.  For example you could complete an adventure to clear an area of undead, gain access to a locked crypt, confront the malevolent spirit within that crypt, and if you win, you'll find that instead of undead in the surrounding area there are just heaps of bones and cloth - for your character, killing that NPC changed the world.  If you go back to that location later, the heaps of bone & cloth are still there; it's a permanent, persistent change for you.  Other players will see the alternate environment, with the wandering undead until they kill the boss NPC.  (This is a real example, btw).

Ok, last comment:  If you have not, I really suggest you read some of that stuff at the Daedalus Report.  If you're a skeptic that there's "real roleplaying" going on in MMOs you will find it eye-opening.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;741596They're as much a "role playing games" as Black Tiger.

ooooh. Black Tiger! I still hold one of the top records on that game.
Definitly not an RPG.

Cadash on the other hand had some RPG elements. And a story.

Back on topic.

Its odd in a way how Games and IP use is seen by fans.
On one side you may have people cheering when a game gets bootlegged and the parent company goes after them.
On the other hand you have people going ballistic when a company goes after a fan site or their personal favorite bootleg.

Quote from: RSDancey;741606I have to conclude that Wizards internal data (which I suspect is quite illuminating) showed them that MMOs, not other tabletop RPGs, were the source of their problems, and they attempted to redesign D&D to counterattack.

In doing so crippled its appeal as a tabletop roleplaying game. They drew the wrong lessons from the data. Trying to make tabletop strong where MMORPGs are strong. Which was ludicrous in hindsight.

What they should have figured out is where tabletop RPGs are strong and where MMORPGs are weak.

Without that data my best guess is that it is flexibility and immersion is where MMORPGs are weak. The human referee is unparalleled in his ability to create material on the fly to adapt to what the players are doing.

Quote from: RSDancey;741606The release of 4e and the treatment of the 3rd party publishers, and the stress the 4e release put on the community should all be case studies.  I think we can all see that Wizards thinks they made mistakes since the 5e strategy seems almost totally built around the idea that unification of the D&D community is Job Number One.  The first stage of getting healthy is admitting you have a problem, and Wizards is admitting they have a problem.

It your fault, you and your Open Game License. ;)

Before if a company took the toys away, the customer choice was either to buy into the new, or stop being a customer.

With the Open Game License, the customer had a third option; fine you don't want to support the game we like, we will support it ourselves.

Quote from: RSDancey;741614Ok, last comment:  If you have not, I really suggest you read some of that stuff at the Daedalus Report.  If you're a skeptic that there's "real roleplaying" going on in MMOs you will find it eye-opening.

I think what a lot of people miss is the fact "being yourself" but in a fantasy world is just as much roleplaying as adopting a funny voice and a different personae.

The essence of roleplaying is acting as if you are really there as your character. Players of MMORPGs deliver that by the bushel. Oh boy they take the game personally.

For a long time I ran sandbox campaigns with lots of NPCs to interact, politics to deal with and places to explore. However I want to make sure that it worked for every person that sat at my table. For a period of time I thought the height of tabletop RPGs was to be somebody different. A different voice, look, and personality. So I tried to teach that to newcomers to my campaign.

And it didn't really take. I wasn't obnoxious about it but despite inducements and pleas it was not happening for a lot of my players. Indeed not happening for the majority of my players.

So what wound up working was simply accepting the fact that reacting as if they are there was more than sufficient. If they are good actors and throw on a different personality like a cloak great! I liked having those players. I made damn sure there was a place for the guy who just wanted to be Jim the Barbarian rather than the Jim the Clerk.

What I did find out is that what players like the most about my campaigns was their ability and my willingness to let their characters have a meaningful impact on my setting. That they could choose exactly what that meaningful impact is.

And the more I played MMORPGs, CRPGs, and LARPS, the more I realized how they compromised in those two aspects of the game. Which is why I still play tabletop more than the others.

Quote from: estar;741620In doing so crippled its appeal as a tabletop roleplaying game. They drew the wrong lessons from the data. Trying to make tabletop strong where MMORPGs are strong. Which was ludicrous in hindsight.

What they should have figured out is where tabletop RPGs are strong and where MMORPGs are weak.

Without that data my best guess is that it is flexibility and immersion is where MMORPGs are weak. The human referee is unparalleled in his ability to create material on the fly to adapt to what the players are doing.

It your fault, you and your Open Game License. ;)

Before if a company took the toys away, the customer choice was either to buy into the new, or stop being a customer.

With the Open Game License, the customer had a third option; fine you don't want to support the game we like, we will support it ourselves.

@Ryan

Thank You.

Quote from: RSDancey;741606But the reason Wizards of the Coast did the 4e project was because D&D had declined in volume precipitously.  In fact, it had been experiencing problems internally for quite some time.

I have a confidential source who was one of the people making the decisions about strategy for D&D who confirmed to me that 3.5 was put into production because sales of 3.0 were "unsatisfactory".  I don't really know what that means, tbh, but this person's view was that the business was declining year over year (which is not surprising, as that is exactly what 1e and 2e had done)

Hi
I just wanted to ask whether Pathfinder products share the same fate or is the line more resistant?

Pathfinder is in a temporarily unique situation of recapturing 3.5 market share and the decline of 4E causing a flight to quality.  I think they'll have the exact same issues, but got their initial sales bubble spread out over a full edition cycle worth of years rather than up front like with 3.0 and 3.5.

I think Pathfinder is a permanent fixture now, with its own niche and a stable of players who will not desert it no matter how shiny the next new thing is.  It's one of the small number of RPGs that are akin to Gibraltar.

I would agree. I don't think 5e will pull away too many Paizo fans.

Quote from: Warthur;741548I know literally no gamers in my extended circle of gaming acquaintances who are really keen on the idea of playing with total strangers online; a substantial number of the gamers I know aren't really keen on playing with total strangers at cons, after all.

I enjoy playing with strangers (strangers when I met them) in my Dragonsfoot text-chat games a lot. They give me a different experience from my tabletop games, and do some things better, eg romance - to do romance in a tabletop game we'd often end up playing it out in Facebook posts anyway, although I did play out an NPC proposing marriage to a PC not long ago in a tabletop session. That was pretty tough doing it live, much easier to type it third person. :)

Ryan: I appreciate that you think content limits, or content reviews and controls, would have harmed the usefulness of the open content licenses.

But I think the more important limit, and I suspect the one that was on people's minds, was the indefinite nature.  Why not put in a 15 year expiration on it (or some other, perhaps longer, number on it)? Do you really think companies would have stayed away from producing content knowing that they only had 15 years before the license ended? I don't.  I think, given the mentality of 90% of the d20 publishers, 15 years would have been viewed as so far down the road as to not matter anymore.

Quote from: estar;741608...
But the heart of these games is the focus on the playing of a individual character over a particular scenario. That what makes all of these roleplaying games.

Quote from: estar;741628I think what a lot of people miss is the fact "being yourself" but in a fantasy world is just as much roleplaying as adopting a funny voice and a different personae.
...

I couldn't agree more.

I mean no disrespect, but I'm detecting a bit of "No True Scotsman"* in what activities people are (not) calling roleplaying here.  Playacting in a mutable world might be roleplaying, but I don't think roleplaying requires playacting or a mutable world.  I've had lots of players at my games who never playacted their character and I've even had a few only use 3rd person to describe their character's actions.  I don't think that made them no longer roleplayers.

Hey, Ryan, because it isn't said enough: thanks for the OGL and entire open gaming revolution you helped spawn.

Quote from: Brander;741851I couldn't agree more.

I mean no disrespect, but I'm detecting a bit of "No True Scotsman"* in what activities people are (not) calling roleplaying here.  Playacting in a mutable world might be roleplaying, but I don't think roleplaying requires playacting or a mutable world.  I've had lots of players at my games who never playacted their character and I've even had a few only use 3rd person to describe their character's actions.  I don't think that made them no longer roleplayers.

I think you are missing the point here or at least mixed up in what others are meaning.

In most TTRPGs you are playing a personal character in a dynamic world that reacts and changes based on what you do. These changes might be a little, or alot. It varies greatly. The characters actions have impacts and repercussions. What person tense they use is utterly irrelevant because everyone does it differently.

The argument many have against RPing on MMOs is that the people arent RPing unless you really stretch the term. "Lets form a group and raid instance 12" is not RPing. Standing around a guild room and chatting in character is more or less RPing. Varies a-lot and it has little impact on the game world. but can impact the group.

Even MMOs based on RPGs like Champions tend to be appallingly lacking in actual role playing.

Quote from: Omega;741893...
In most TTRPGs you are playing a personal character in a dynamic world that reacts and changes based on what you do. These changes might be a little, or alot. It varies greatly. The characters actions have impacts and repercussions. What person tense they use is utterly irrelevant because everyone does it differently.

The argument many have against RPing on MMOs is that the people arent RPing unless you really stretch the term. "Lets form a group and raid instance 12" is not RPing. Standing around a guild room and chatting in character is more or less RPing. Varies a-lot and it has little impact on the game world. but can impact the group.
...

What I'm saying (and I think agreeing with a couple other people here) is that the "playing a personal character" is what makes something roleplaying, not the mutable world part.  It also has nothing whatsoever to do with whether it's a solo or group event and nothing whatsoever to do with speaking in character.

I get that some people are rejecting this position, but I think they are very much setting a (too strict) standard that would exclude a lot of people who do indeed feel like and think they are roleplaying.

I'm as deep a roleplayer at the table as I think you can get (and I have larped and really like to fight larp (in character) when I can too) but when I'm playing one of my characters in Guild Wars 2 (and back when I was playing WoW), I get a lot of the same rewards out of it.  And I do 90% of my MMO gaming solo*.  Sure I miss having a real impact on the world, and I miss dynamic NPCs, but I'm still playing each character as a personality; i.e. they have "real" names and I do ascribe a small bit of personality to them (more than many of the 3rd person players in my TT games).  Am I not roleplaying?  Yes, I think I am, even if I still want a TT game to get the other bits as well.


*If I don't know you in meatspace or one of the people I know in meatspace doesn't know you then I have almost no interest in playing with you.  I very rarely make exceptions to that.

Quote from: Brander;741899What I'm saying (and I think agreeing with a couple other people here) is that the "playing a personal character" is what makes something roleplaying, not the mutable world part.  It also has nothing whatsoever to do with whether it's a solo or group event and nothing whatsoever to do with speaking in character.

Playing a personal character is a big part.

IE: in the FF games Im controlling "that guy" or "That group" and they are going to do and say things that arent what I'd do or say. As said, its more an interactive story or movie.

Some people will try to define RPGs as playing ANY character. Over on BGG someone went so far as to claim reading a book was role playing. I wish I were joking.

Exactly where though one places RPG where you are playing more than one character or handling henchmen? You still created the PCs but may not have created the henchmen.

None of which has anything to do with the topic really aside from how some view MMOs and role playing.

I agree some have too narrow a spectrum, but others have impossibly broad spectrums to the point that everything by their definition is role playing.

Its an old argument and its never going to be resolved.

Quote from: Omega;741893The argument many have against RPing on MMOs is that the people arent RPing unless you really stretch the term. "Lets form a group and raid instance 12" is not RPing. Standing around a guild room and chatting in character is more or less RPing. Varies a-lot and it has little impact on the game world. but can impact the group.

Even MMOs based on RPGs like Champions tend to be appallingly lacking in actual role playing.

You are 100% correct in the fact the players can alter their physical environments in a substantial form. However you are also 100% wrong about the roleplaying. Because there is one very important part of the game they can impact and that is the social network the connects the players.

However what is different, especially today, is the type of social interaction and connections that are made.

A large segment of social interactions are very similar to the drama that takes place among participants in a sport league. MMORPGs share many characteristics of amateur sport leagues. It is a competitive environment with what in theory are hard and fast rules that people do for fun solo or in teams.

This used to be a segment of tabletop RPGs when it was the only game of its type around, but now this audience has been lost to First Person Shooters and MMORPGs.

MMORPGs particpants are roleplaying just not in the same way that tabletop RPGs emphasize. It is roleplaying because unlike sports league (and first person shooters) everything the person does is through the character, and the character defines the limits of what the player can do.

Note that First Person Shooter differ from MMORPGs in that the heart of a FPS relies on the physical skills (mostly dexterity) of the player. That what character options exists are in the form of equipment. In MMORPGs the games has character progression as well as gears. So a beginning character has limitations that no amount of physical skill can overcome. (Although it certainly does help).

The same thing with LARPS versus sport-like reenactments.  The live-action physical combat and/or social interactions allows a person with natural talent to excel at  the game but only to a point. A start LARPs character has limitations that can't be overcome by the physical (or mental) talents of the player.

Hey guys, we made Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/22ouss/ryan_dancey_former_wotc_exec_and_key_backer_of/).

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;742041Hey guys, we made Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/22ouss/ryan_dancey_former_wotc_exec_and_key_backer_of/).

This thread is better. :)

I can't speak to issues of Pathfinder - too many entangling commitments as I'm sure you all understand.  Those kinds of questions should be answered by Paizo, not by me.  :)

Quote from: Mistwell;741839Why not put in a 15 year expiration on it (or some other, perhaps longer, number on it)? Do you really think companies would have stayed away from producing content knowing that they only had 15 years before the license ended? I don't.  I think, given the mentality of 90% of the d20 publishers, 15 years would have been viewed as so far down the road as to not matter anymore.

Yes, I think it would have materially affected the impact and use of the license if there had been any meaningful restrictions placed on it.  The environment was too toxic to have negotiated a series of "except", "but" and "until" conditions.

Quote from: RSDancey;742048Yes, I think it would have materially affected the impact and use of the license if there had been any meaningful restrictions placed on it.  The environment was too toxic to have negotiated a series of "except", "but" and "until" conditions.

Ryan is totally right here. This could have had a simmilar impact to any licensing deal publishers make for movies or other IP. When that deal expires or goes south you can end up left with unsellable product. It has happened to me, it has happened to TSR, it has happened Decipher and to others.

Publishers would be potentially intensely wary of a "this is good only for XYZ years" allowance. The longer the term the less problems one would have. But it would still have impacted choice to opt in or not.

Quote from: estar;741932You are 100% correct in the fact the players can alter their physical environments in a substantial form. However you are also 100% wrong about the roleplaying. Because there is one very important part of the game they can impact and that is the social network the connects the players.

However what is different, especially today, is the type of social interaction and connections that are made.

A large segment of social interactions are very similar to the drama that takes place among participants in a sport league. MMORPGs share many characteristics of amateur sport leagues. It is a competitive environment with what in theory are hard and fast rules that people do for fun solo or in teams.

This used to be a segment of tabletop RPGs when it was the only game of its type around, but now this audience has been lost to First Person Shooters and MMORPGs.

MMORPGs particpants are roleplaying just not in the same way that tabletop RPGs emphasize. It is roleplaying because unlike sports league (and first person shooters) everything the person does is through the character, and the character defines the limits of what the player can do.

Note that First Person Shooter differ from MMORPGs in that the heart of a FPS relies on the physical skills (mostly dexterity) of the player. That what character options exists are in the form of equipment. In MMORPGs the games has character progression as well as gears. So a beginning character has limitations that no amount of physical skill can overcome. (Although it certainly does help).

The same thing with LARPS versus sport-like reenactments.  The live-action physical combat and/or social interactions allows a person with natural talent to excel at  the game but only to a point. A start LARPs character has limitations that can't be overcome by the physical (or mental) talents of the player.

Hypothetical -
So if you were playing in a table top RPG that was particuarly free form say a diceless game where resolution mechanics were made based on sympathetic activities- so to climb the wall you need to do 40 push ups in a minutes, to shoot the guard you need to throw 5 of of 8 pingpong balls into a pint glass etc
Would that be roleplaying ?
The limitations of the character are defined by your physical and mental limits.
You are still interacting with a shared imaginary space through an avatar and reacting as you would expect that avatar to react to given phemonena.

(the bolded bit is my base defintion of roleplaying.)

Quote from: jibbajibba;742060Hypothetical -
So if you were playing in a table top RPG that was particuarly free form say a diceless game where resolution mechanics were made based on sympathetic activities- so to climb the wall you need to do 40 push ups in a minutes, to shoot the guard you need to throw 5 of of 8 pingpong balls into a pint glass etc
Would that be roleplaying ?
The limitations of the character are defined by your physical and mental limits.
You are still interacting with a shared imaginary space through an avatar and reacting as you would expect that avatar to react to given phemonena.

(the bolded bit is my base defintion of roleplaying.)

er... I have a solo RPG right here that does essentially that... The strength of an attack was the number of pushups you could do. Healed by doing sit ups etc...

Quote from: jibbajibba;742060Hypothetical -
So if you were playing in a table top RPG that was particuarly free form say a diceless game where resolution mechanics were made based on sympathetic activities- so to climb the wall you need to do 40 push ups in a minutes, to shoot the guard you need to throw 5 of of 8 pingpong balls into a pint glass etc
Would that be roleplaying ?
The limitations of the character are defined by your physical and mental limits.
You are still interacting with a shared imaginary space through an avatar and reacting as you would expect that avatar to react to given phemonena.

(the bolded bit is my base defintion of roleplaying.)

That sounds like weird live action roleplaying to me. I played mostly boffer LARPs but I knew of groups whose events were basically sitting around, roleplaying, and using a simplistic physical method of resolving conflict. World,of Darkness larp used Rock Paper Scissors at one point.

My call is that group is roleplaying but it is hybrid between a LARPS and tabletop.

Quote from: estar;742065That sounds like weird live action roleplaying to me. I played mostly boffer LARPs but I knew of groups whose events were basically sitting around, roleplaying, and using a simplistic physical method of resolving conflict. World,of Darkness larp used Rock Paper Scissors at one point.

My call is that group is roleplaying but it is hybrid between a LARPS and tabletop.

Table LARP.

True Dungeon at GenCon uses dexterity games to resolve combat and live puzzles a-la Crystal Maze. I've been in some table sessions where GMs brought in real prop puzzles for the players to solve. Or groups that RP at the table in costume. Only seen that once though. But talked to others at cons who do it too.

Quote from: Omega;742085Table LARP.

True Dungeon at GenCon uses dexterity games to resolve combat and live puzzles a-la Crystal Maze. I've been in some table sessions where GMs brought in real prop puzzles for the players to solve. Or groups that RP at the table in costume. Only seen that once though. But talked to others at cons who do it too.

The way I view it is that there is a core that each form of roleplaying coalesces around. However hybrids are possible and are regularly done by the hobby. This is especially prevalent between story-games, wargames, and tabletop roleplaying games where the boundaries are a long grey smear rather than being clear cut.

Quote from: jibbajibba;742060...
The limitations of the character are defined by your physical and mental limits.

You just described Dagorhir.  It has no classes, no levels, it's just you, your gear, and your persona.  Though I'm sure some other fight Larps might argue as to whether it counts since it's almost exclusively battle focused.  Having done it for a while (though I'm currently in a long hiatus) I'd say it often does.

Quote from: Brander;742136You just described Dagorhir.  It has no classes, no levels, it's just you, your gear, and your persona.  Though I'm sure some other fight Larps might argue as to whether it counts since it's almost exclusively battle focused.  Having done it for a while (though I'm currently in a long hiatus) I'd say it often does.

Dagorhir lies between the hard core reenactment of the Society of Creative Anachronism and fantasy oriented boffer LARPs like NERO.

I always considered them a "chilled out" version of the SCA. Don't get me wrong there are good people and jerks in both but Dagorhir is easier to get into and more laid back.

But then again some of what they do at the SCA is simply amazing compared to anything else.

One other thing of note is that Dagorhir was developed before modern LARPs around 1980. So it part of a different era than the World of Darkness, and the NERO style boffer larps.

It wasn't until the late 1980 that live-action roleplaying games truly came into their own. Mostly because it took a while for people to come up with rules and techniques that works both as live-action game and a roleplaying game.

Before then it was either too sports like (SCA, Dagorhir), too much like improvised theater without much of a game, or were too restrictive like IFGS (International Fantasy Gaming Society).

But by 1990 a number of groups figured how make live-action games that were free-form, an interesting game, and above all were safe to play.

Quote from: estar;741932However you are also 100% wrong about the roleplaying. Because there is one very important part of the game they can impact and that is the social network the connects the players.

In an MMO, I can, at least usually, ignore other players and go about and do my own thing.

Those other players can only impact my social network if I allow them to.

That's not the case in an RPG.

Quote from: kythri;742288In an MMO, I can, at least usually, ignore other players and go about and do my own thing.

Those other players can only impact my social network if I allow them to.

That's not the case in an RPG.

Yes that true if you are in a PVE server otherwise it still does whether you like it or not. With PVE you are using the MMORPG software as you would a CRPG.

Even then you are still roleplaying as you would in a CRPG.  Still acting as your character and limited by what your character can do.

Quote from: estar;742308Even then you are still roleplaying as you would in a CRPG.  Still acting as your character and limited by what your character can do.

I don't much play "CRPG" style games anymore, but when I do/did, I roleplay(ed) in those as much as I pretended to be Sonic the Hedgehog.

I'm sure others play differently, and that's cool, but for me?  Button-mashing ain't roleplaying.

Quote from: kythri;742316I don't much play "CRPG" style games anymore, but when I do/did, I roleplay(ed) in those as much as I pretended to be Sonic the Hedgehog.

I'm sure others play differently, and that's cool, but for me?  Button-mashing ain't roleplaying.

Considering that there are people who will claim that reading a book is really real role playing...

Quote from: RSDancey;741115So despite the fact that the OGL had been available for 8 years at that point, despite the fact that many people had made complete replacements for D&D, some of them very good, and despite the fact that Wizards had 8 years of experience in working with and around games that used the OGL, it was still able to tap a huge reservoir of good will towards D&D when 4e launched.

If 4e had been a game that players wanted, 4e would have been a massive success.  In my opinion, that's a very hard statement to argue with.

Everything that came after, especially the rise of Pathfinder, derives from the simple fact that 4e was not the game that players wanted.  I would further argue that it would not have mattered if the OGL had existed or not.  The near-death of TSR in 1997 showed that gamers don't just switch to another game system when D&D falters.  They just stop buying.  They just keep playing the game they already own.  The collapse of 4e wasn't because Pathfinder existed.  It would have happened regardless.

Pathfinder got lucky.  Paizo combined it's direct access to tens of thousands of customers it had from its time as the Dragon and Dungeon magazine publisher to address the gap.  Any number of companies - Fantasy Flight, Mongoose, Green Ronin, etc. could have addressed that gap.  Paizo just got there first, and had the advantage of that database of contacts to leverage, and when 4e stumbled, Pathfinder caught a break.

So Paizo didn't hurt Wizards of the Coast with Pathfinder.  Wizards self-inflicted its wounds, and would have sustained them in the absence of the OGL.

Thank you for this; pretty much the best analysis I've seen of this particular situation.  I'd only add that it seems to me there was, around that time, something that had gone profoundly rotten in the internal culture of WoTC, that led them to directly undermine that goodwill even before the books came out.  A lot of the 4e design itself was a product of that culture; it wasn't just that D&D players in some arbitrary way "decided" they didn't like it, it was that Wizards was so out to lunch they almost went out of their way to create a game that two-thirds of their existing customers would despise, on purpose.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RSDancey;741126I'm always very careful to not say that 4e is a bad game.  Many people I really respect think it's an incredibly well designed game.  It just wasn't the game that the market wanted.

More specifically, though, it was (regardless of how well-designed) the game that most D&D gamers didn't want.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;742720it was that Wizards was so out to lunch they almost went out of their way to create a game that two-thirds of their existing customers would despise, on purpose.

RPGPundit

This is a recurring theme with WOTC and any sideline product they happen to pick up. Wether or not it is intentional or not is anyones guess. But games like d20 GW and a lesser degree 4eD&D Gamma World seem to have been tailor made to repulse as many fans of the original as possible.

One designer scpeculated that either they are trying to kill off the line through bad sales. A "Look Gamma World crashed and burned. Those fans were totally wrong and its a dead game so stop asking us to reprint it!" or it could be a tax write off. The second seems unlikely. But WOTC has never been known for their wisdom.

In advertising and promotion WOTC is notoriously inept. Sure Next has great word of mouth due to the open playtest. But outside the online community and possibly FLGS. Who knows it is coming?

Unfortunately we'll never know whats going on behind the scenes really. WOTC is just too damn unpredictable and way too prone to nonsensical acts.

Quote from: Omega;742725This is a recurring theme with WOTC and any sideline product they happen to pick up. Wether or not it is intentional or not is anyones guess. But games like d20 GW and a lesser degree 4eD&D Gamma World seem to have been tailor made to repulse as many fans of the original as possible.

One designer scpeculated that either they are trying to kill off the line through bad sales. A "Look Gamma World crashed and burned. Those fans were totally wrong and its a dead game so stop asking us to reprint it!" or it could be a tax write off. The second seems unlikely. But WOTC has never been known for their wisdom.

In advertising and promotion WOTC is notoriously inept. Sure Next has great word of mouth due to the open playtest. But outside the online community and possibly FLGS. Who knows it is coming?

Unfortunately we'll never know whats going on behind the scenes really. WOTC is just too damn unpredictable and way too prone to nonsensical acts.

I think 4E gammaworld is an excellent game; but it is presented too gonzo even for me as a diehard 1E GW fan.

Quote from: Bill;742853I think 4E gammaworld is an excellent game; but it is presented too gonzo even for me as a diehard 1E GW fan.

Yrah, thats the insane thing. It does 4e such that people who dont like 4e like this version. But it so totally fucks the setting and the direction is so fucked up that it just repulses too many. "Hilarity Ensues" The addition of a CCG needed to get the rest of the mutations and equipment was just another nail in the coffin.

And its one of the most boring and pointless CCGs I've yet seen. Text. No art. And they were on such a tight leash from Hasbro that they quote "Could not afford different backs on the cards."

Eh. Hopefully they wont screw it up for Next.

Quote from: RSDancey;741294Yes, I agree strongly.  This is why I think that Ron Edwards hit the nail on the head when he started asking questions about why RPGs didn't give narrative authority to the players.  

And yet his movement's every attempt to implement this notion resulted in abject failure.  Clearly, "storygames" is NOT what the market wanted. They wanted D&D.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;742964And yet his movement's every attempt to implement this notion resulted in abject failure.  Clearly, "storygames" is NOT what the market wanted. They wanted D&D.

This.  It turns out that there is very little conceptual space in tabletop RPGs as a medium, and games that don't play to that space's strengths are the ones that fail; D&D covers most expressions of what the medium is capable of, as it plays to the medium's strengths, and the few RPGs that endure other than D&D tend to cover the gaps where D&D is unable or unwilling to handle.

I think the thought that people wouldn't have changed over to something other than D&D when TSR went under is a bit flawed.  To my recolection nobody tried to step up and fill that gap.  The whole industry seemd to gasp and freeze that year.

Partly, from the talk in magazines at the time, there was a pretty defeatist attitude in the industry already.  Sales were down and nobody in the know seemed to believe that rpgs would survive in a world of computer games.

But the reality is that nobody stepped up to take D&D's place.  I suspect Warhammer got a decent surge in sales but they were already pretty independant of D&D and ads in Dragon by then.  Though their Dragon ads had pretty much built the company in their early days.

I think the right product could have stepped in and grabbed the market but I don't think the existing games could have done it.  Partly, I expect everyone was hurting a bit financially at that point, Rolemaster and GURPS had a reputation for complexity, White Wolf withtheir noses in the air wouldn't stoop to publishing a generic fantasy game for the masses, Palladium was and is a mess and I don't think anyone else was big enough to pull it off.

What happened with Pathfinder is that WotC pretty much gave them their fan base by giving them Dragon and Dungeon to handle.  This also gave them a good long push towards corporate viabilty.  When the right opportunity came they were able to step right up to the plate.  Even without the OGL I suspect they could have grabbed a good chunk of the market with a game of their own.  There's plenty of non-OGL games that have been pretty close to D&D, though most originated before the OGL.

Quote from: RPGPundit;742964And yet his movement's every attempt to implement this notion resulted in abject failure.  Clearly, "storygames" is NOT what the market wanted. They wanted D&D.

RPGPundit

I see it as MMOs providing something that some RPGers wanted and thus pulled those players out of the RPG hobby and story games provide something that some RPGers wanted and pulled those players out of the RPG hobby, but to a much smaller degree.

On a market wide level, obviously story games didn't take over.  I can't call them an abject failure though, as the people making them are doing so and the people buying and playing them are doing so.  Just not in any quantity that can be compared to anything like D&D or Pathfinder.  For Ron Edwards and Vincent Baker, it's always been about the indie/creator owned market.

Ron Edward's vehicle for his ideas has always been that of indie publishing.  Those like Fred Hicks, Luke Crane and Jared Sorensen who embraced more of a market approach have vastly outsold Edwards, Baker and Nixon.  Even they, though, are nothing compared to the size of D&D at it's high points. They're probably not much more than White Wolf/Onyx Path at it's lowest point.

Problem is. People were predicting the death or TTRPGs since the advent of the arcade. Even before that there were murmurs that MUDs would be the end of face to face RPGs, especially when they started hitting their stride in the late 80s. Then PC games. Then consoles, then MMOs, then whatever the fucks next.

There was a slump in the market because A: CCGs were leeching massively from the disposable income and somewhat into the time investment. Companies were killing themselves off left and right playing either follow the leader or sue the fans. Bad PR was mounting everywhere.

At the time there were very few MMOs of note. Everquest was one, Neverwinter was another. EQ was hugely popular though. But at the time they were more RP focused according to a friend who played on EQ extensively. RPing pretty much died with the advent of grind focused MMOs. Even Champions is somewhat grind focused. Though that is predominantly for crafting bits.

RPGs are still around. MUDs are still around. When people want to really role play they will turn to RPGs if they can. NOT MMOs.

Its the If they can part that is the factor. Finding viable groups.

That is from personal observations and talking with others on MMOs, at cons, etc.

Quote from: RPGPundit;742964And yet his movement's every attempt to implement this notion resulted in abject failure.  Clearly, "storygames" is NOT what the market wanted. They wanted D&D.

RPGPundit

Yup. The market wants D&D. Not Dogs in the Vineyard.

Quote from: Benoist;743024Yup. The market wants D&D. Not Dogs in the Vineyard.

Yep.  Dogs In The Vineyard is a self published niche game that appealed to a small audience.

That said, I don't think any of the actual publishers of story games ever claimed that their way would become the way forward for the industry.  I think that's a strawman Pundit has constructed.  The games that developed out of the conversations Rod Edwards, Vincent Baker, Clinton R Nixon and others had at the forge are going to be what they advocated for:  self published, creator owned indie games that have a tiny print run or just sell in PDF and print on demand.

Everyone now and again you'll get someone on some forum going "aha!" and claiming story games thinking has taken over D&D or Pathfinder or something, but they're just plain wrong.

I think what Ryan Dancey was pointing out when he mentioned Ron Edwards is that there is a subset of RPG players remaining in the industry who are well served by an approach that moves some narrative control into the hands of more than one person at the table.  I don't think he's saying anything beyond that.

I don't think the "market" is big enough for more than one "D&D" style game.  Pathfinder pretty much has that segment sewn up (at least for now).

At PAX East, I introduced the category I called "Modern Midmarket RPGs".  I defined this category as games first released after 2000, with sales of at least 10,000 units.  Not new editions of older games, but whole new games.

Within that space I think it's very hard to argue that Ron's ideas about narrative authority and storytelling have not had a pretty tremendous impact.  Mouseguard, which has sold close to 20,000 units according to Luke Crane, is clearly influenced by those ideas.  Numenara, which is in the same neighborhood of sales, was too.

I have not played the Fantasy Flight Star Wars or Warhammer 40k titles.  Perhaps someone could comment on those who has?

If I were creating something like Vampire: The Masquerade today, and if it had not previously existed, I would certainly be focusing on shared narrative authority and other storytelling mechanisms that evolved on the Forge.  It's hard to imagine they wouldn't.

I can't speak to their new Star Wars stuff, Ryan, but FFG's Warhammer 40.000 RPGs are vastly more traditional than Mouse Guard or any other Forge-influenced game when it comes to the division of narrative control between player and GM (and are substantially more traditional than Numenera). You have a pool of fate points that give you bonuses or save you from death, but it's a small enough pool that you won't see it used very regularly in any particular session, merely "spending" a fate point only ever gives you a small mechanical bonus rather than giving you any direct narrative control, and burning a fate point doesn't give you any narrative control over how you survive - it's solely a "get-out-of-death free" card. That's one mechanic in a system which in more or less all other respects is extremely traditional.

For that matter, I don't think Numenera is the sort of shared narrative game you seem to think it is. Players have very, very little narrative control in that unless they elect to spend XP to establish situational benefits or to counter "GM interventions" (and there isn't anything system or fluff-wise to stop the GM throwing complications at the players which don't qualify as "interventions" and so can't be countered in this way, and indeed based on the sample adventures most challenges the players face won't be interventions). Numenera also has a very trad-D&D emphasis on exploration and soaking in the setting and gameworld, which isn't something that Forge games typically draw on. (Furthermore, the GM intervention mechanic seems to be inspired by FATE, which is, again, extremely traditional when it comes to the division of power between players and GMs.)

So I think your assessment of Numenera as not being D&D-like and being more Forge-like is rather tenuous, to say the least.

I want to be careful to draw a distinction between "Forge-like" and Ron's initial work in questioning the lack of narrative control on the part of players.  "Forge-like" games created their own (small) subgenre.  But the larger issues Ron raised, about giving more people at the table narrative authority, have worked their way into many designs because a lot of really good game designers recognize their value.

So I'm not in any way saying Mouseguard or Numenara are "Forge-like" games.  I'm just saying they reflect a change in the way designers are thinking about the relationship between players and GMs and between players and narrative authority.

Quote from: RSDancey;743272I want to be careful to draw a distinction between "Forge-like" and Ron's initial work in questioning the lack of narrative control on the part of players.  "Forge-like" games created their own (small) subgenre.  But the larger issues Ron raised, about giving more people at the table narrative authority, have worked their way into many designs because a lot of really good game designers recognize their value.

So I'm not in any way saying Mouseguard or Numenara are "Forge-like" games.  I'm just saying they reflect a change in the way designers are thinking about the relationship between players and GMs and between players and narrative authority.

The error here is that proper RPGs have sweet fuck-all to do with narrative or story-telling at all.  They--like the wargames they're derived from--are about problem-solving; you have an objective, and limited resources at hand to deal with meeting it, so how do you meet that objective?  This is Ron's big error, compounded by those who likewise fail to grok what this medium is about, and the consistency of their failure shows it.  It's about getting the job done.  RPGs that stick to this problem-solving paradigm are the ones that succeed; the rest fail.

It's not about story-telling or narrative to operate under a first-person perspective, or through a destructable avatar; these are nothing more than the same constraints that every one of us has to deal with everyday.  Nor is it about those two things if a player chooses to cooperate with others (PC or NPC) towards common objectives; we do the same thing in real life everyday, for the same reasons, and it's not about narrative/story-telling here either- it's about getting the job done.  That's what makes Edwards and his ilk so toxic; they're trying to do something that the tool (the TRPG medium) is not designed to do, was never intended to do, and fails horribly at doing.

If Edwards and company want to deal in narrative and story-telling, then we already have an entire industry all about doing that collaboratively, and it is quite telling for many of us that they choose not to use the proper tools for the job (or work in the proper medium) but instead insist on trying to make a wrench do the work of a drill.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;743276RPGs that stick to this problem-solving paradigm are the ones that succeed; the rest fail.

Mouseguard is a Modern Midmarket RPG.  It's more successful than most RPGs published since 2000.  It has probably outsold every "OSR" game combined.  Do you think that game is a failure?

Quote from: RSDancey;743272So I'm not in any way saying Mouseguard or Numenara are "Forge-like" games.  I'm just saying they reflect a change in the way designers are thinking about the relationship between players and GMs and between players and narrative authority.

Except, for the reasons I outlined, for the most part Numenera thinks about that relationship and says "Actually, 99% of the time I'm cool with the relationship between players and GMs and narrative being authority exactly how it is with D&D".

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;743276RPGs that stick to this problem-solving paradigm are the ones that succeed; the rest fail.

Quote from: RSDancey;743280Mouseguard is a Modern Midmarket RPG.  It's more successful than most RPGs published since 2000.  It has probably outsold every "OSR" game combined.  Do you think that game is a failure?

One thing you might notice in these parts is a tendency to engage in all-or-nothing thinking when it comes to talking about anything connected with anyone who's ever been connected with the forge.  Being able to spot details and make distinctions flies out the window as people zealously defend the faith against the heretics.

I suspect you might be encountering some of that religious fervor now.

For some here, they'll see Luke Crane is the author and assume because of his some time association with the forge and people like Jared Sorensen that everything he does must somehow count as a failure and when the numbers put the lie to that, they'll be along shortly to tell you how the game doesn't technically count as an RPG (no true scotsman fallacy).

Quote from: RSDancey;743280Mouseguard is a Modern Midmarket RPG.  It's more successful than most RPGs published since 2000.  It has probably outsold every "OSR" game combined.  Do you think that game is a failure?

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell you that for some reason Mouseguard doesn't count as an RPG in a blatant display of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

The thing to remember about this forum is that our host has been carrying out a one-sided personal war against anything that even remotely connected with the forge.  So you get some like minded individuals who can't ever allow anything that can be even tenuously connected to Ron Edwards to be good or a success.

Quote from: RSDancey;743231If I were creating something like Vampire: The Masquerade today, and if it had not previously existed, I would certainly be focusing on shared narrative authority and other storytelling mechanisms that evolved on the Forge.  It's hard to imagine they wouldn't.

The latest update to the Vampire core rulebook, Blood & Smoke does exactly that.  It's probably the version of the game that focuses the most on sharing narrative authority, thematic mechanics and goes even further with the use of scenes and storytelling mechanisms than Vampire: the Requiem.

I happen to prefer something like 1980 Runequest 2nd edition, but I can totally see why that approach makes more sense for Vampire.  And from what the Onyx Path people are saying, it looks like it may end up qualifying for your Midmarket category, though I can't say for sure.

Quote from: Warthur;743282Except, for the reasons I outlined, for the most part Numenera thinks about that relationship and says "Actually, 99% of the time I'm cool with the relationship between players and GMs and narrative being authority exactly how it is with D&D".

Here's what Monte Cook wrote about the "spirit" of the game. (http://www.numenera.com/the-spirit-of-numenera/)

Since the guy knows pretty well what the relationship between GMs and narrative is in D&D, don't you think that it is interesting that he takes the time to compare and contrast several different, non-D&D-style narrative experiences, plus D&D, and describes his game as different than D&D?

Or do you think the guy who wrote a version of D&D, and wrote Numenara doesn't know what Numenara is like?

Quote from: RSDancey;743294Or do you think the guy who wrote a version of D&D, and wrote Numenara doesn't know what Numenara is like?

Given the long history of game designers declaring that their games are totally different from D&D, when actually they amount to minor variations thereof, it would be entirely unsurprising for this to be the case with Numenera.

Though to give Monte full credit, he doesn't seem to be saying with that article what you want him to be saying to support your argument - he points out that whilst the rules of Numenera don't work like any of the examples he cites (a houseruled AD&D game, a houseruled Rolemaster game, and a houseruled 3rd edition game), "the spirit of the game–the essence–owes a great deal to these experiences. Numenera is about imagination, ideas, and stories. The rules exist only to service these things, and when they're not needed they get out of the way. Which means, among other things, that there aren't rules for things that don't need rules."

If anything, this sounds as much like the approach of lighter OSR games as it does anything Ron Edwards ever did.

Quote from: RSDancey;743280Mouseguard is a Modern Midmarket RPG.  It's more successful than most RPGs published since 2000.  It has probably outsold every "OSR" game combined.  Do you think that game is a failure?

Yep.  Sales is not usage, and I can't find anyone in the Twin Cities who plays this game.  The interest is not there, and that's because those few interested in playing anthropomorphic rodents already have TMNT/After The Bomb, HERO, GURPS, or (most likely) some form of D&D to scratch that itch.

It doesn't help that the source comic is itself a niche product with low appeal; a derivative product of a niche product with low appeal to the target audience is going to produce no users worth noting.  A successful TRPG is one where I can walk into ANY game store, club, etc. and either play or run that game in five minutes flat.  D&D?  Yep.  CoC?  Yep.  RIFTS?  You got it.  Traveller?  Sure.  But Mouseguard?  "That fucking furry shit comic?" (if I get any recognition at all) followed by "What fucking bullshit rules are these?" always ends in "Fuck this.  I'll just use D&D."

Precious few RPGs are successful.  Most of them are utter wastes of time that would have been better used supporting an existing game, or spend on putting in the work towards mastering the craft of the proper medium (for the products that scream "frustrated novelist" or something similar) for that game's ambition, and they should be purged for the good of both gamers and gaming.

Quote from: RSDancey;743294Here's what Monte Cook wrote about the "spirit" of the game. (http://www.numenera.com/the-spirit-of-numenera/)

Since the guy knows pretty well what the relationship between GMs and narrative is in D&D, don't you think that it is interesting that he takes the time to compare and contrast several different, non-D&D-style narrative experiences, plus D&D, and describes his game as different than D&D?

Or do you think the guy who wrote a version of D&D, and wrote Numenara doesn't know what Numenara is like?

The guy that wrote the version of D&D that in his own words have an "exhaustive definition of, well, everything." writes a game now that doesn't.  

Ok, but Monte's missed the whole point of his fond recollections of yesteryear.  When he played AD&D "Jay had no rules for how this would work. No stats for the demon lord. But since I could only use it once, that stuff didn’t matter."

Now he claims that in Numenera "there aren’t rules for things that don’t need rules."

Well, unfortunately for Monte, if you're following the Edwards or even Laws playbook then all those intangibles that didn't require rules before absolutely require rules once the game makes narrative control and story creation a design goal.

That's the whole point of the Forge - System Matters, so you want story, you make rules for it.  You want players controlling something outside the character, you make rules for it.

By the way, Monte (and I guess Ryan also) apparently fails to realize that Malhavoc having as a character an in-game power is not a narrative control mechanic.  That's as much narrative control as saying my character kills the princess instead of saving her.  Characters always have control of their own character and can influence the setting through the character, that's the whole damn point of Roleplaying for Christ's sake, and has nothing to do with "narrative control" because the setting, despite Robin's decades long delusion to the contrary, is not a story, and roleplaying is not a literary art form.

Quote from: RSDancey;743280Mouseguard is a Modern Midmarket RPG.  It's more successful than most RPGs published since 2000.  It has probably outsold every "OSR" game combined.  Do you think that game is a failure?

Mouse Guard is an IP recognition game. I've worked on enough of these to know how they function market-wise.

Would it have done a tenth as well under its own aegis? Probably no without totally twisting the genre to get attention. Which fails as oft as it succeeds.

Ryan, you'll notice some shifting goal posts here.  If you point to Mouseguard as an example of a successful game that features a different distribution of narration, you'll get a few different responses.

1) No True Scotsman.  It can't be a successful RPG if I can claim it's not an RPG at all!

The ironic thing about this is that Bradford's defintion of what RPGs are about directly applies to Mouseguard.  Mouseguard is about taking the role of a character and overcoming problems that character faces.

2) Special pleading.  It can't be a successful RPG if I just define success as people playing it and then assert that no one does.

Mouseguard gets played.  It's been out for almost six years and for a couple years after it came out, people just weren't shutting up about their games of it.  Actual Play podcasts started having series of it.  A google search for "mouse guard actual play" put the lie to this assertion that no one plays it.  And with google hangouts rising in popularity, it seems to be getting a bit of a resurgence.

Ryan Dancey also seems to be talking about the entire industry, while these claims of "no one plays it" are often idiosyncratic to the poster's location and immediate circle of gaming friends.  If I had to guess, I'd guess that there are just as many OSR purchasers who don't play regularly as there are Mouseguard purchasers who don't play regularly.

Omega's point about licensed products is a good one.  I'm sure it contributed to the sales.  Although many people I know ended up getting introduced to the comic because of the RPG.

Mechanics that distribute narration rights to people other than the GM are all over the place right now.  And games that have them seem to be doing just fine in the market place.  I'm not sure there's a midrange game that doesn't have some form of them right now.

More on the definition of RPG as it's used on this forum and how it applies to these midrange selling games that have them:

Spoiler

This site generally functions with a very clear distinction between RPGs and Story-games and the presence of meta mechanics or narration rights mechanics is often seen as an indicator that the game might be a story game rather than an RPG.  The only problem is that people forget that it's a matter of degrees.  

You need enough of the meta mechanics or narration rights mechanics that you depart from the core behaviour of RPGs. There are many, many games that have these indicative mechancis but still fundamentally are about playing a role and solving problems that character faces, and resolving those problems using rules based on the factors involved in the described problems.

Thank goodness your 2 months experience of the site is sufficient for you to be able to speak for everyone.

Quote from: One Horse Town;743413Thank goodness your 2 months experience of the site is sufficient for you to be able to speak for everyone.

That's how pronounced it is.  That's how easy it is to pick up on.  There are examples right here in this thread.  I'm not speaking for anyone, I'm describing what I've heard them say.

I don't really play story games any more.  And I've moved away from games that have mechanics dealing with narration rights.  However, I don't consider such games to be wrong.  Many of the most prolific posters do.  And it's colouring their interaction with someone who actually knows about the industry as a whole.

If anyone spent a couple months reading what's posted on this forum and weren't able to pick up on the pro-OSR, anti-story game zeitgeist of the forum, I'd question their reading comprehension skills.

About the specific responses I pointed out were fallacious:

Spoiler

Earlier in the thread, I questioned whether or not any ideas even tangentially related to the forge have had any impact on the industry at all, but Ryan Dancey pointed to the midrange selling game category and they do seem to have some form of narration points or mechanic as a common element.  They don't depart from the definition of RPGs that many hear use completely, but there's something there in terms of story considerations impacting design.  

I took a closer look at Mouseguard and the new Vampire book.  And the proliferation of FATE and other systems and found that many do have mechanics where the players can override, change or directly control what gets narrated.  And these games are drastically outselling games I prefer like OpenQuest, BRP or LL.

So I'll change my position on that after being presented with some evidence and accept that some of the forge-ish ideas have had more of an impact than I would have liked and that some of the best selling games have these elements.  The only real options when someone gives you evidence that falsifies your position is to change your position or use a logical fallacy to nullify the evidence.

"That's not really an RPG" and special pleading to redefine success into failure with "No one actually plays these games, they just talk about them on the internet" are ones I've seen rather regularly over the last two months.  They're even in this thread.

Not that I've also seen examples like the feminist critique of Ron Edward's new Kickstarter where these ideas were not applied fallaciously.  The feminist literally said that she wasn't going to play the game but was happy her concerns were addressed anyway.  And there are games that do use enough story and narrative related mechanics that they would depart from being an RPG.  I don't think FATE, Mouseguard or Vampire go that far though.

Quote from: NathanIW;743414That's how pronounced it is.  That's how easy it is to pick up on.  There are examples right here in this thread.  I'm not speaking for anyone, I'm describing what I've heard them say.

What you are missing is a lot of us really don't care about this debate.

Quote from: CRKrueger;743346That's the whole point of the Forge - System Matters, so you want story, you make rules for it.

And where they (Edwards, etc) missed the big fucking point is that there was ALREADY A RULE for doing that. Implicit in the setup of tabletop roleplaying from day. This magical rules is quite simply stated as

QuoteThis is a game where you pretend to be a character in an imagined setting.

It may not be a sexy rule according to Edwards and the ilk. It may not involves using little chips to keep track of points, rolling dice, playing a card, or involve structured negotiations. But it is a rule none the less. A rule that lies at the heart of every single tabletop roleplaying game ever made and ever will be made.

Follow that rule and the problems with "story" disappear. Just pretend to be a character in whatever setting the referee is trying to present. Or in some campaigns whatever setting the group is trying to present.

If there is a problem then it because the referee (or the group) is presenting an uninteresting or boring setting in which to pretend to be a character in. It could be because people are asshole and rigged the game. It could be truly uninteresting  or any number of reason. The proper response is to change the damn setting. Not try and find some magic "rule" to make the magic happen.

Quote from: NathanIW;743414Many of the most prolific posters do.  And it's colouring their interaction with someone who actually knows about the industry as a whole.

Why should you care?

You've basically been playing to the peanut gallery, talking about people who have posted to the thread, who you could have interacted with directly.

Instead, you're being a smug arse talking about people who are in the room.

Ryan knows this place better than you. He's been in and around the place for ages, posted to Pundit's blog for years, and been involved in the discussions you seem to feel compelled to 'instruct' him in.

Sorry, but it's condescending in the extreme, both to the posters you're pissing on, and to Ryan.

Quote from: RSDancey;743280Mouseguard is a Modern Midmarket RPG.  It's more successful than most RPGs published since 2000.  It has probably outsold every "OSR" game combined.  Do you think that game is a failure?

Quote from: NathanIW;743287I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell you that for some reason Mouseguard doesn't count as an RPG in a blatant display of the No True Scotsman fallacy.

I'm not terribly familiar with Mouseguard, but I have heard some things about it's play that lead me to believe that it is a quasi-rpg at best.

What I learned was secondhand, and so may be the fault of the person running the game and not so much the game itself. The issue was one of "framing challenges". Supposedly, there was a situation in-game that could be approached with either diplomacy or combat. The players chose diplomacy and the challenge was resolved via the mechanics.

So far so good. The issue arose, when the diplomacy was unsuccessful, that some of the players wanted to go some old fashioned ass-kicking as plan B and were told no because they chose to frame the challenge as diplomacy.

Was this the GM being a tool or running the game as written?  

If this is the way the game is written it is far away from any rpg I would want to play.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;743417What you are missing is a lot of us really don't care about this debate.

I don't recall saying it was universal, just prevalent.  Examples right in this thread.

And our host is committed enough to it that there's a separate forum for games that don't meet the criteria of getting to count as an RPG.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;743424So far so good. The issue arose, when the diplomacy was unsuccessful, that some of the players wanted to go some old fashioned ass-kicking as plan B and were told no because they chose to frame the challenge as diplomacy.

Was this the GM being a tool or running the game as written?  

It's the GM insisting on staying in one form of combat after the players have essentially gave up on winning through diplomacy and switched to another form of combat.  Sure, they lost the diplomacy, but now it's time for some violence.

There are possibilities though, where the character is convinced by the diplomacy and disallowing physical combat after they failed to get what they want is a quashing of metagaming.  Like when a DM dissuades a player if from attacking a peasant given that they are lawful good and work for the local baron.  It's not something their character would do.  Some would even say the DM has the right to forbid such an action.  Others would not even dissuade and go right to the consequences.

So it is possible that you can enter into talks and in doing so lose the ability to resort to violence without some other factor coming up.  Burning Wheel and Mouseguard allows the mechanics to impact your character's state of mind and then asks the player to roleplay their character accordingly.

QuoteIf this is the way the game is written it is far away from any rpg I would want to play.

I could see it rubbing people the wrong way.  In D&D you can have charm magic that can constrain player choices, but in D&D, would you ever accept the idea that someone can be convincing enough to similarly constrain player chocies?  So the issue can also be present in OD&D given the rulings of the DM.  How much can a player be constrained in their choices before it stops counting as an RPG?

Quote from: NathanIW;743427I don't recall saying it was universal, just prevalent.  Examples right in this thread.

And our host is committed enough to it that there's a separate forum for games that don't meet the criteria of getting to count as an RPG.

Again I am so not interested in this debate. Just commenting because yet another interesting discussion has succumbed to this topic by people on both sides that can't help themselves. Including yourself.

Quote from: One Horse Town;743421Instead, you're being a smug arse talking about people who are in the room.

If someone has already shown they'll just shift the goal posts to protect their position, what chance for real dialogue with them do I have?

QuoteRyan knows this place better than you. He's been in and around the place for ages, posted to Pundit's blog for years, and been involved in the discussions you seem to feel compelled to 'instruct' him in.

Just think of it as a friendly reminder that he's discussing things in good faith and they're not.  The response to him pointing out that Mouseguard outsold the entire OSR combined?

It doesn't count as real success because the people who bought mouseguard probably don't play it.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading

Quote from: NathanIW;743432I could see it rubbing people the wrong way.  In D&D you can have charm magic that can constrain player choices, but in D&D, would you ever accept the idea that someone can be convincing enough to similarly constrain player chocies?  So the issue can also be present in OD&D given the rulings of the DM.  How much can a player be constrained in their choices before it stops counting as an RPG?

Barring an effect present in the game world (such as psionics/magic, etc.) decisions are always for the player to make. The GM has quite a bit of influence on the rest of the world but when it comes to player characters the player is king. The GM should never presume to tell a player how his character feels about something, much less dictate what he does or doesn't do.

Abuses in this area are what produce the badtouched players who demand more narrative control.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;743433Again I am so not interested in this debate. Just commenting because yet another interesting discussion has succumbed to this topic by people on both sides that can't help themselves. Including yourself.

Go back to me only being around for two months and understand that I'm still in the process of saying my piece on the topic.  I've haven't been here posting about this for years, like some have.

The original question of this thread has been pretty much asked and answered.  And this secondary topic spawned directly out of Ryan's insights about the industry.  This isn't a derailment, but a conclusion of one line of discussion and the opening of another.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;743438Barring an effect present in the game world (such as psionics/magic, etc.) decisions are always for the player to make. The GM has quite a bit of influence on the rest of the world but when it comes to player characters the player is king. The GM should never presume to tell a player how his character feels about something, much less dictate what he does or doesn't do.

Abuses in this area are what produce the badtouched players who demand more narrative control.

That could be entirely the case.  I think you might be right about that.

I like some constraint through narration.  I'm not committed to 100% freedom of decisions by the players as I find that appropriateness is a real thing.  Like if a player started using sci-fi jargon in a fantasy game.  I wouldn't really accept "my decision about what my character says is 100% mine!" if they kept insisting on calling fantasy elements by a sci-fi analogue all the time.  

Just like I also say no to non-genre appropriate character names.  People don't get to be Captain Blasto in a bronze age fantasy setting. And they don't get to mix saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal in a 6:1:1 ratio and make gunpowder just because they can describe their character doing so.  That action isn't appropriate to the genre nor appropriate to the character's knowledge and if I end up making someone into a badtouched player by forbidding it, I'm willing to accept the risk.

I find Mouseguard's pushing of this notion of appropriateness into the realm of reactions, actions, emotional states, etc., to be too far for my liking though.  It asks a lot of the players and if you don't have a given player completely buy into the idea that the system can constrain their actions, it's going to really suck.

How often can a DM constrain people's actions or dictate emotional states before they're no longer running an RPG?  How often can the Mouseguard mechanics constrain people's action or dictate emotional states before they game is no longer an RPG and just what some might consider a bad one?  Is Call of Cthulhu not an RPG because the sanity mechanic dictates character emotions at times?  Or when it does so, is it just a bad mechanic?

Quote from: NathanIW;743436Just think of it as a friendly reminder that he's discussing things in good faith and they're not.  

Talking of good faith, maybe you can stop editing things into your posts after the fact.

Most of this Forge stuff is way over my head.

All I can say is that I've got a couple of players who like to get deep into their character's backgrounds and want to see subplots connected with those, but the majority couldn't care less. And the more players I get in the group, the less time there is for that kind of individuation.

Quote from: Saplatt;743497Most of this Forge stuff is way over my head.

I hear you.  I just want to roll dice and have fun.

Shared narrative control is very good for game designers that want to collaboratively create a setting. They are not relevant for players that want to play their character in their GM's setting which they share it with their fellow players.
In consequence, shared narrative control mechanics do not have a lot to do with traditional rpgs.

It must drive some people crazy that guys like Dancey and Mearls read my blog, write on my sites, and generally hear what I have to say.

Quote from: RPGPundit;742723More specifically, though, it was (regardless of how well-designed) the game that most D&D gamers didn't want.

RPGPundit

It's so different from D&D that that's not surprising - except to WoTC, apparently. I agree with you that 4e was a clusterfuck. The alienating marketing and the lack of continuity from 3e were big mistakes. So were (a) the game being rushed out unfinished and (b) the lack of understanding within WoTC of the game they had made and what it was actually good at, as evidenced by the terrible 4e adventures WoTC produced.
I think 4e is a great game, a great "Fantasy Marvel Superheroes" game. Mechanically, at core it's better designed than 3e in most respects - playing the stripped down D&D-Gamma World game which uses the 4e engine recently really brought that home to me.
But it's not D&D, it doesn't play like D&D, if you try to use it to play D&D you get a highly unsatisfactory experience.

Quote from: Omega;742725This is a recurring theme with WOTC and any sideline product they happen to pick up. Wether or not it is intentional or not is anyones guess. But games like d20 GW and a lesser degree 4eD&D Gamma World seem to have been tailor made to repulse as many fans of the original as possible.

The only problems I could find with 4eD&D Gamma World were (a) the moronic notion of collectible cards for mutations & tech and (b) the complete lack of support after the two expansions and (c) monsters have 2-3 times too many hp, as in 4e.

OK that's quite a lot of problems. But otherwise it's a great game. :D

Quote from: RSDancey;743280Mouseguard is a Modern Midmarket RPG.  It's more successful than most RPGs published since 2000.  It has probably outsold every "OSR" game combined.  Do you think that game is a failure?

Mouseguard is popular, but I doubt it's played as much as Labyrinth Lord alone (you can download LL free so retail sales aren't the best comparison); never mind when you add in Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and Dungeon Crawl Classics is really an OSR RPG. At the London D&D Meetup the main games after 4e and Pathfinder are probably DCC, Dark Heresy, Labyrinth Lord, FF Star Wars; with individual showings for eg Mage and various homebrews. I see Mouse Guard talked about a fair bit in indie circles but it wasn't being played at the London Indie Games Meetup when I visited, they were all doing their own thing. It's not something you'd see featured on the shelves of London games stores either, unlike the above games (plus Runequest) - even LL has more games store visibility than MG; Dark Heresy Star Wars or DCC have vastly more.

Edit: I guess Mouse Guard was popular six years ago? I had a small baby then, no time for RPGs. :) Sounds like it made a similar splash to Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which was definitely a big fad at the time.

The most successful game the Forge-Swine ever came up with was Dungeon World, which was so imitative of old-school RPGs that it actually stopped being a storygame.  The fact that they were desperately trying to get DW confused for an OSR game, and that at the same time Storygame Swine were trying to rewrite history to pretend that somehow the Forge had been behind the OSR all along, to hitch onto the bandwagon, shows how much more popular old-school gaming is than game about teenage waitresses dealing with misogyny, or whatever.

RPGPundit

Over the weekend the recent lawsuit over the Hex, the kickstarter game that apparently looks and plays way to similar to MtG, got me thinking of this thread.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/05/17/magic-the-gathering-clone/

Based on the issues brought up here, I think this proves two things.

1)  WoTC and Hasbro are willing to push the cases where they think the clones are too similar to be a copyright violation.

2)  I suspect the biggest reasons they don't go after retro-clones are both in part because of the OGL safe harbor, and also (and more likely) that the business threat to WoTC of 1e retro-clones is very minimal.

Quote from: JRT;7502481)  WoTC and Hasbro are willing to push the cases where they think the clones are too similar to be a copyright violation.

I imagine they're willing to push cases where they think have a case against someone infringing on their IP.  In the case of card games, they have a patent interest, so they're MUCH more likely to pursue action because of the way IP laws work for patents.  (That is, they don't want to NOT take action and then be subject to an argument that they've abandoned their mark.  That's not a concern for copyright cases.)

For most clone RPGs, patents won't be a concern.  The main concern is copyright.  However, because of the OGL, clones executed with care have explicit permission to use many things that might otherwise be considered possible copyright infringement.  

There are other ways a clone game could screw up and find themselves infringing on WotC IP (e.g., copyright infringement based on trade dress), or breaking the terms of the OGL (e.g., claiming compatibility with a WotC trademark, using prohibited Product Identity terms), but it's possible to avoid or minimize those concerns.

Quote2)  I suspect the biggest reasons they don't go after retro-clones are both in part because of the OGL safe harbor, and also (and more likely) that the business threat to WoTC of 1e retro-clones is very minimal.

I agree with the first part of this statement (i.e., the OGL gives people permission to do what they're doing with clones, providing the "safe harbor" that could make a copyright infringement case difficult).  I disagree with the second part.  If you don't consider an OGL/clone RPG like Pathfinder a significant business threat to WotC, I'm not sure what you would consider a significant business threat to WotC.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;743424I'm not terribly familiar with Mouseguard, but I have heard some things about it's play that lead me to believe that it is a quasi-rpg at best.

This was one of the things that attracted me to Mouse Guard : it seemed like a quasi-RPG and thus was different to other RPGs in that respect. Also it had beautiful production values , it was self-contained in a single book ( no splats to buy ) , it seemed fairly simple , and it was about playing cute mice characters. I just think it is a very good game.

With the diplomacy challenge the GM should have either allowed the characters to ' fail forward ' ( success but with a consequence ) or allowed them to initiate a new combat challenge. That's the way I would have ruled it.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;750253I imagine they're willing to push cases where they think have a case against someone infringing on their IP.  In the case of card games, they have a patent interest, so they're MUCH more likely to pursue action because of the way IP laws work for patents.

Well, the suit is more complex than just based on the patent.  The full text of the suit is here and it deals with copyright and detailed expressions of rules--the argument is the terminology is very similar to magic unlike a lot of the other competing games.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/224144304/Wizards-of-the-Coast-v-Cryptozoic-Entertainment-et-al

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;750253I agree with the first part of this statement (i.e., the OGL gives people permission to do what they're doing with clones, providing the "safe harbor" that could make a copyright infringement case difficult).  I disagree with the second part.  If you don't consider an OGL/clone RPG like Pathfinder a significant business threat to WotC, I'm not sure what you would consider a significant business threat to WotC.

I was more or less referring to "old school" retro-clones--I do not consider 3e a "retro-clone" so much since the OGL was developed at the time for the 3e system, and thus, Pathfinder is probably the safest of the bunch.

When it comes to earlier forms of D&D--Original, Advanced, Basic/Expert, etc., those rules were never released on the OGL and I suspect they could make a case for it since there was never a SRD or license for those earlier games.   But in the case of that, I suspect they don't consider things like OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, etc., commercial threats worth suing over.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;750253I imagine they're willing to push cases where they think have a case against someone infringing on their IP.  In the case of card games, they have a patent interest, so they're MUCH more likely to pursue action because of the way IP laws work for patents.  (That is, they don't want to NOT take action and then be subject to an argument that they've abandoned their mark.  That's not a concern for copyright cases.)

For most clone RPGs, patents won't be a concern.  The main concern is copyright.  However, because of the OGL, clones executed with care have explicit permission to use many things that might otherwise be considered possible copyright infringement.  

There are other ways a clone game could screw up and find themselves infringing on WotC IP (e.g., copyright infringement based on trade dress), or breaking the terms of the OGL (e.g., claiming compatibility with a WotC trademark, using prohibited Product Identity terms), but it's possible to avoid or minimize those concerns.

You've mangled up trade marks, patents and copyright here. They're different IP rights and they all work very differently.

Quote from: S'mon;750283You've mangled up trade marks, patents and copyright here. They're different IP rights and they all work very differently.

Yes, I know they're different and all work differently.  That was the thrust of my point (especially with regard to patents and copyrights).

What did I mangle?  Oh wait, I think see: I lumped trade dress in with copyright, and that's not really correct.  Or were you thinking of something else?

Quote from: JRT;750271Well, the suit is more complex than just based on the patent.

Sure.  I was just saying that a suit that includes a patent claim is much more likely to be pursed because a patent is involved.  A suit based on a copyright claim is also probably more likely when there is no OGL involved.  Those elements aren't as big a worry for most clones games since there aren't patents involved and the clones tend to use the OGL.

QuoteI was more or less referring to "old school" retro-clones--I do not consider 3e a "retro-clone" so much since the OGL was developed at the time for the 3e system, and thus, Pathfinder is probably the safest of the bunch.

Perhaps, although I'd argue that the difference between Pathfinder's use of the OGL and an "old school" clone's use of the OGL is one of degree (e.g., an old school clones makes use of the license's permission to use and redefine terms to a much greater extent than Pathfinder, but that doesn't mean Pathfinder doesn't also do the same thing, in places.)

I do see your point, though.

Thought I'd read through this thread again, hit RSD's rah-rah storygaming cheerleading (which is both pernicious because it's in a place where storygaming isn't very well regarded, and peculiar because hasn't RSD told us all pen and paper gaming is dead anyway?), which is rather a lot like cutting in to a beautiful beefsteak tomato and hitting that patch of horrible black rot that you can sometimes unfortunately get...

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;750302Yes, I know they're different and all work differently.  That was the thrust of my point (especially with regard to patents and copyrights).

What did I mangle?  Oh wait, I think see: I lumped trade dress in with copyright, and that's not really correct.  Or were you thinking of something else?

That was one, mixing up copyright and trade dress (which in the UK is under Passing Off, at any rate nothing to do with copyright).
The other I noticed was "MUCH more likely to pursue action because of the way IP laws work for patents. (That is, they don't want to NOT take action and then be subject to an argument that they've abandoned their mark" - there you mix up patent law and trade mark law.

Quote from: S'mon;750498That was one, mixing up copyright and trade dress (which in the UK is under Passing Off, at any rate nothing to do with copyright).
The other I noticed was "MUCH more likely to pursue action because of the way IP laws work for patents. (That is, they don't want to NOT take action and then be subject to an argument that they've abandoned their mark" - there you mix up patent law and trade mark law.

Gah, you're absolutely right.  I know better, too.  Embarrassing.