I was reading the following article from before the release of 3.x:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e
At the time of the article, the Open License was still a consideration, and Ryan Dancey laid out what they expected to happen. What's interesting to me is that the reasons that the OGL were seen to work (primarily in relation to "The Theory of Network Externalities") may no longer apply.
D&D was the 'leader', and competing product drove more people to D&D. Considering the 'boom' cycle, this seemed to be largely correct.
It would seem that if Pathfinder is the market leader, then the release of Next will help them more than anyone else (assuming, again, that the tenants that led to the OGL were correct - as they appeared to be since everything he laid out as an expectation became observed fact).
There's a certain amount of truth to the fact that many people lean towards playing games with rules that they already know.
But ... Pathfinder itself has shown that a well-known system (3.5) with a few tweaks can be pretty successful as well.
5e isn't really all that radical of a departure from 3.5e. Same abilities, same races, same classes, same d20 mechanic. Many of the same or similar spells, equipment and class abilities.
I don't think the difficulty in learning a few new rules (like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic) will be much of a problem.
The OGL gave everything away and now WotC has to live in the aftermath of their idiocy. Unless 5e is 100% open OGL style, there will be a free 5e-clone wandering around soon enough. After the GSL debacle, I expect we will see a D20 license style thingie when 5e hits, and maybe even a full OGL - for the Basic PDF. We will see.
I don't know if 5e does anything positive for Paizo. With so many games on the market, I don't see why anyone would be playing Pathfinder unless they are enjoying Pathfinder so I don't see a big negative for Paizo either.
WotC's idiocy was in not realizing the nature of the OGL and that they had a Tiger by the Tail. A successive set of decisions had them purposely moving away from their own content, until they finally dropped it all, and thought they could New Coke it with a game so different from all other forms of D&D someone couldn't recreate it with the OGL, and no one would notice. Didn't work out too well.
The OGL let WotC sell more D&D books since the heyday of the hobby. It was them purposely walking away that killed them.
Quote from: CRKrueger;761384The OGL let WotC sell more D&D books since the heyday of the hobby.
You are mistaking the D20 license for the OGL. The D20 license sold D&D books, while the OGL sold Pathfinder books.
Quote from: Spinachcat;761379The OGL gave everything away and now WotC has to live in the aftermath of their idiocy. Unless 5e is 100% open OGL style, there will be a free 5e-clone wandering around soon enough. After the GSL debacle, I expect we will see a D20 license style thingie when 5e hits, and maybe even a full OGL - for the Basic PDF. We will see.
I don't know if 5e does anything positive for Paizo. With so many games on the market, I don't see why anyone would be playing Pathfinder unless they are enjoying Pathfinder so I don't see a big negative for Paizo either.
What's more idiotic, deciding to open your game or trying to undo that choice?
Linux is a thing. A stupidly successful thing, in fact. And a lot of folks make a lot of money selling things that surround the OS, instead of the OS itself. Android, for example.
Pathfinder is like Android. It's an ecosystem built around the free thing.
4e was like the Windows phone. Based on something familiar, using the same brand, but completely and totally different underneath.
I heard a rumor that MS was considering running Android apps over the Windows phone. Sort of aping Amazon, really. This strikes me as an awesome idea.
5e OGL could be that, too.
Quote from: mcbobbo;761391I heard a rumor that MS was considering running Android apps over the Windows phone. Sort of aping Amazon, really. This strikes me as an awesome idea.
Through virtualization or by launching a child process of the android OS that sandboxes just for the app in question?
Quote from: Spinachcat;761387You are mistaking the D20 license for the OGL. The D20 license sold D&D books, while the OGL sold Pathfinder books.
The OGL was selling all kinds of books long before Pathfinder was created. The movement was not JUST the d20 licensed material, it also had substantial OGL only non-d20 licensed offerings.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;761353... What's interesting to me is that the reasons that the OGL were seen to work (primarily in relation to "The Theory of Network Externalities") may no longer apply. ...
This may be one reason. Considering the success of Pathfinder, 3.x built up a large network and when WOTC abandoned them, Paizo took up the mantle and supports this vibrant network to this day. But it wasn't the ONLY reason some think the OGL was successful. In fact, it would have been hard to prove the theory applied to the OGL
until Paizo successfully inherited said network from the original "best most widely known" game.
I believe many advocates of the OGL (me being one of them) considered it successful because of the opportunity it provided. It allowed the little guy to publish for the popular game. It spawned variants and new ideas (like Arcana Evolved, Fantasy Craft, Grimm, etc.), new genres with familiar rules and even variations on old ideas like the Dragonstar reboot of Spelljammer (essentially). It also inspired other game companies to open up their rules for development (like Action! System, FUDGE and D6). When I first heard of the OGL Network Externalities seemed like a good idea (who doesn't want to build the hobby base?) BUT it was far afield compared to other ideals that seemed more imminently applicable.
For what we know now, I think more specific questions may be in order. Like, if 5e is released under the OGL will it begin building a new network or build upon the existing one? If Pathfinder then takes OGL parts of 5e and incorporates them into PF, will 5e remain "the subset" of the original network or simply be a part of it? If D&D and PF find themselves under the same OGL umbrella, what will the network look like 5 years from now? What will the companies offerings look like? Will there be cooperation in an effort to continue to grow the network despite system/game specifics? Or will we see religious wars akin to the tribal disputes of popular religions?
Quote from: deadDMwalking;761353... D&D was the 'leader', and competing product drove more people to D&D. Considering the 'boom' cycle, this seemed to be largely correct. ...
I don't see how competing product "outside the network" drives more people into the network? I don't know how the boom cycle proves that point. Certainly 3.x grew the D&D market (the network got bigger), and the demand for d20 product was HOT, so more stuff was published and available. Hence the boom. However, other games thrived during this time, and I can't see how World of Darkness, Exalted, Shadowrun, GURPS, Savage Worlds, etc. drove anyone to the leader? The boom has a direct correlation to the increase in size of the D&D network, and I believe it more likely as the D&D network grew, so did the somewhat related "RPG network". This network only exists for those who are interested in trying games not D&D, don't like D&D, play other games and D&D, etc. So it seems more likely that the success of the leader increased the success of the followers.
I may just have misunderstood what you were saying. :-)
Quote from: Spinachcat;761387You are mistaking the D20 license for the OGL. The D20 license sold D&D books, while the OGL sold Pathfinder books.
The OGL sold a lot of Hardcovers for WotC and lots of non-OGL splats for people who wanted options for the system. Pathfinder AP buyers still needed WotC books.
It's only after people figured out they could just sell the friggin SRD reformatted, that WotC panicked and tried to get out of the OGL first with 3.5 (here's all the same splats...again). and finally thought they could actually walk away from it and people would follow.
The OGL didn't create Pathfinder as a competitor, WotC created Pathfinder as a competitor, when they walked away from selling the #1 game, told all their 3pp people to go fuck themselves or get in line and thought people would blindly follow the brand.
The OGL brought D&D back from irrelevance, WotC dropping the OGL almost drove it back there.
Quote from: CRKrueger;761384The OGL let WotC sell more D&D books since the heyday of the hobby. It was them purposely walking away that killed them.
When a company pulls a 'New Coke' there only a limited range of options for the consumers. Yeah you could go to Pepsi but for many the point of drinking Coke was the specific flavor. Not just any carbonated cola would do.
But with the "new coke" of D&D 4e, the hobby had the option of continuing with the discontinued rules. The result was a huge split of Wizard's monolithic base.
It illustrate of the tension between allowing IP holders to profit from their creations and the common cultural heritage of mankind. It is important to allow creators to profit from their works even if they are a "souless" corporation. But you have to keep in mind that creative works become a shared heritage as well.
If say a 1,000,000 fans is want it took for Warner Brothers to keep Babylon 5 going, but then it drops to say 900,000 fans a year later. Now Warner Brother dollar is better spent on other projects. Warner Brothers is ethically obligated to their shareholders to make the most of the money they spend. But is discontinuing B5 fair to the remaining fans just because they dropped below a "magic" number.
If a local for profit theater was putting on a Shakespeare series and did well on the first two plays. But then third one didn't pull high enough numbers and theater opted out of doing a fourth play. Because Shakespeare is in the public domain those interested would have the option of attempting to continuing the series in another venue.
It may fail, it may middle along, or it may be better than the original run. What important they had the freedom to try to make a go of it.
To tie this back to D&D because 3.5e was under a open license, a group of people, Paizo, was free to make a go of it. It could have tanked, it could have just middled along. But as it turned out it was a resounding success story.
Quote from: Spinachcat;761379The OGL gave everything away and now WotC has to live in the aftermath of their idiocy. Unless 5e is 100% open OGL style, there will be a free 5e-clone wandering around soon enough. After the GSL debacle, I expect we will see a D20 license style thingie when 5e hits, and maybe even a full OGL - for the Basic PDF. We will see.
I guess some people just don't like being free.
OGL and the D20 license were Wizards' way to save their D&D brand from the horrible legal debacle caused by the bad legal advice accepted by TSR. The OGL and D20 license clarified what you can and cannot do as a fan or as a third-party company, saved A LOT of time and mess (and lawyers' fees) associated with having to negotiate a specific license with each 3PP, and saved D&D's reputation from being "that game which's publisher sues fan sites".
They made a killing with D&D 3.xE. Especially because a huge number of 3PPs were making supporting material for D&D without any cost whatsoever for Wizards. And a huge amount of fan material (again, no cost for WotC) was also available online for free. So yes, it made Pathfinder possible, but also made D&D 3.xE immensely popular.
Wizards' mistake, as others have pointed out before me, was walking away from their D20 success story to create a completely different (though quite good) game which didn't really cater to the needs and wants of a large chunk of the D20 customer base.
Nothing to do with the subject at hand, but I just realized that golan2072's avatar is a lizard head viewed from above. My mind kept interpreting that as some sort of mystic monolith in a shadowy canyon viewed from in front.:o
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;761568Nothing to do with the subject at hand, but I just realized that golan2072's avatar is a lizard head viewed from above. My mind kept interpreting that as some sort of mystic monolith in a shadowy canyon viewed from in front.:o
Hehehehe... Indeed, a Painted Dragon's (Stellagama stellio) head viewed from above. I meet them in the 'wild' (including in urban areas) all the time. Cute little dragons! And yes, they have evolved a "rocky" texture and colour as camouflage.
Quote from: CRKrueger;761398The OGL didn't create Pathfinder as a competitor, WotC created Pathfinder as a competitor, when they walked away from selling the #1 game, told all their 3pp people to go fuck themselves or get in line and thought people would blindly follow the brand.
.
Didn't they also terminate Paizo's use if Dragon and Dungeon? Not only did they end an edition that was making money for so many third parties, they introduced a much more restricted license for 4E, and they took away Paizo's core product. My impression when Paizo released pathfinder was much of it was fueled by their anger toward Wotc and from the need to survive. I think Wotc really screwed itself there, but it also demonstrated a total lack of understanding of what the OGL created (whereas Paizo seemed to grasp it completely).
Quote from: thedungeondelver;761395Through virtualization or by launching a child process of the android OS that sandboxes just for the app in question?
Sounds like they would run natively, maybe via something like cygwin. I can't find anything further than speculation, but there's some concern about native interface to the UI, which implies non-VM at least.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;761573Didn't they also terminate Paizo's use if Dragon and Dungeon? Not only did they end an edition that was making money for so many third parties, they introduced a much more restricted license for 4E, and they took away Paizo's core product. My impression when Paizo released pathfinder was much of it was fueled by their anger toward Wotc and from the need to survive. I think Wotc really screwed itself there, but it also demonstrated a total lack of understanding of what the OGL created (whereas Paizo seemed to grasp it completely).
Yes, exactly.
Though to be fair, to hear Lisa tell it, it's less about insight and more about being around Dancey when OGL was being developed. They also describe the 4e-or-not choice as a bit of a leap of faith.
Quote from: trechriron;761396I may just have misunderstood what you were saying. :-)
One part of it is that there are few 'absolute purists' in the hobby that play one game exclusively. There are a larger number that end up playing only a single game, but that has more to do with what their friends are playing than anything else. In my group, all five of us would be willing to play a different system if someone else was running it.
During the 3.x cycle, a lot of people that played other systems either tried 3.x or ended up 'getting stuck with it' as huge numbers of active players adopted it. There was a period where people were really complaining that '3.x was the only game in town'.
So there were certainly people that bought systems (like BESM tri-stat) but also bought 3.x, because playing a different system is better than not playing at all...
Tying back to the original article, I think the OGL really did what they hoped it would, and definitely 4th edition and trying to move away from it turned out to be both a tactical and strategic mistake. I don't know how open NEXT will be (though I've heard it will be pretty open) but I don't know if that's enough to take back the initiative.
I think it's interesting - back ~2000 there was a hope that WotC would 'save the game'. And they did. Now, with the OGL, nobody needs anyone to 'save the game'. There are so many 'flavors' (including the OSR games) that players have a lot of options. It's more difficult to monetize, I think, than it was before, and there would be a lot of benefit in 'uniting the fan base'.
I never had any expectation that Next would do that (but I actually did hope for that). As information gets leaked out, I'm not seeing anything that would get me excited about a new edition. There's no compelling reason to switch - and I don't think there will be without broad 3rd party support. A product like Green Ronin's Black Company Campaign Setting (http://greenronin.com/2004/12/the_black_company_campaign_set_3.php) is the type of thing that might have moved someone who wasn't a fan of D&D into 3.x.
So far, the only publisher that I've seen support next is Wolfgang Bauer (Kobold Press). I had hoped for more...
Quote from: mcbobbo;761576Sounds like they would run natively, maybe via something like cygwin. I can't find anything further than speculation, but there's some concern about native interface to the UI, which implies non-VM at least.
This will be an interesting development; I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, I wonder if this isn't a cynical attempt by MS to show how the other half lives is not worth living by gimping a sandbox that makes 'droid apps crawl or just fall over; but more logically I think that would get more dirt on MS than on competitors. On the other, I wonder if MS is approaching the WinPhone as Windows; a mere program launcher, including programs that run in a 'droid sandbox, and will push the platform forward thusly rather than as a walled garden as Apple has with the iPhone.
Interesting times.
Quote from: CRKrueger;761384The OGL let WotC sell more D&D books since the heyday of the hobby. It was them purposely walking away that killed them.
It's also not clear that the continued existence of 3E/Pathfinder material on the market substantially hurt 4E. The history of the industry is littered with games that did big, revisionist editions and watched large chunks of their player base say, "No, thanks." and stay with the old rules.
The existence of Pathfinder just made it clear how drastically WotC had screwed up with 4E in a really public and undeniable way.
Quote from: Spinachcat;761387You are mistaking the D20 license for the OGL. The D20 license sold D&D books, while the OGL sold Pathfinder books.
Spoken like someone who either wasn't around or wasn't paying attention back in 2000: The only reason publishers were willing to publish SRD-based material is because the OGL couldn't be revoked.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;761573I think Wotc really screwed itself there, but it also demonstrated a total lack of understanding of what the OGL created (whereas Paizo seemed to grasp it completely).
Also true: WotC was wrong to walk away from the OGL. But their actual method of doing it was even worse. If they had cooperated with their major licensees and released a reasonable (albeit revokable) GSL in a reasonable timeframe, companies like Paizo and Margaret Weis and Green Ronin would have
helped them through the transition instead of becoming competitors.
(And that doesn't even take into consideration the tone-deaf decision to deep six
Dragon and
Dungeon as print magazines as part of the 4E roll out. I'm not sure who at WotC said, "You know what we should do? We should piss off all of our most loyal customers just when we want them to buy a new game. That won't backfire. After all, it's not like all of their names are on a mailing list that's owned by one of the licensees that we're also bending over backward to piss off." But that guy was a moron.)
Quote from: CRKrueger;761384WotC's idiocy was in not realizing the nature of the OGL and that they had a Tiger by the Tail. A successive set of decisions had them purposely moving away from their own content, until they finally dropped it all, and thought they could New Coke it with a game so different from all other forms of D&D someone couldn't recreate it with the OGL, and no one would notice. Didn't work out too well.
The OGL let WotC sell more D&D books since the heyday of the hobby. It was them purposely walking away that killed them.
Absolutely right.
QuoteClasses:*Each class features one option for specialization. The fighter has the champion martial archetype, the cleric features the life domain, the rogue has the thief roguish archetype, and the wizard has the School of Evocation arcane tradition.
That's fine for Basic, but seems super limited for any type of SRD. So I think the idea that Basic would be the OGL version may well be busted.
Quote from: mcbobbo;762849That's fine for Basic, but seems super limited for any type of SRD. So I think the idea that Basic would be the OGL version may well be busted.
Especially when you just know there are going to be a million "unofficial" subclasses that are fan created that will be out there.
Quote from: mcbobbo;762849That's fine for Basic, but seems super limited for any type of SRD. So I think the idea that Basic would be the OGL version may well be busted.
The Basic PDF is not meant to be an SRD.
The first 5th edition 3pp module is out:
http://froggodgames.com/5th-edition
Using the OGL.
"5th Edition Rules
1st Edition Feel"
Edit: And their e-mail newsletter has this bit:
QuoteKeep an eye on your email over the weekend... there are some big announcements you won't want to miss out on...
I don't know if this is related or if they just want to steal some of 5e's thunder by announcing some other project, like a new Kickstarter.
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;764258The first 5th edition 3pp module is out:
http://froggodgames.com/5th-edition
Using the OGL.
"5th Edition Rules
1st Edition Feel"
Well its free, so that is a plus.
But:
Some of the formatting is clearly based on the play-test rather than the actual basic pdf.
It asks you to look up things that do not yet exist.
The pre-gens don't actually seem to be built correctly.
It could possibly have done with another read over rather that being rushed out. That all said, it is an interesting move.
Wizard's Amulet is such a crappy module. The 1st Edition feel referenced in it must have been Dragonlance, the way it's so railroady.
And even then, there's this lovely GM Tip
QuoteYou should get into the habit of drawing up the night's campsite
on the battle map even if you know there won't be an encounter.
Otherwise, players quickly figure out that you only draw the map
when they're about to be attacked. Keep them on their toes. Don't
ignore drawing up the map just because you know there is nothing
special about this hill.
Oh yeah, totally 1st Edition Feel
I'm with Jeremy on this one; this is a rush update job at best.
I mean, shit, it still says (Ex) after an extraordinary ability.
Looks like Frog God Games is coming out with an OGL adventure, from day 1, with assistance from WOTC.
Link (http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2014/07/frog-god-games-rereleases-wizards.html).
Quote from: thedungeondelver;761395Through virtualization or by launching a child process of the android OS that sandboxes just for the app in question?
Actually they will be release phones that run Android and ape windows phone and emulate for old windows phone apps.
http://bgr.com/2014/06/24/nokia-x2-release-date-price-and-specs/
I think it's called 'embrace and extend' with the hope of driving other android phones out of business, then they'll kill it.
But really Microsoft currently makes a ton of money off of android phone sales. Patents gave them a lot of leeway to strong arm folks into licensing.
Quote from: Mistwell;764506Looks like Frog God Games is coming out with an OGL adventure, from day 1, with assistance from WOTC.
maybe. Steve Winter worked on it at Frog God Games, and I'll bet working with Kobold he has a copy of the PHB to refer to.
Quote from: dar;764583maybe. Steve Winter worked on it at Frog God Games, and I'll bet working with Kobold he has a copy of the PHB to refer to.
I guess wait until their announcement Sunday?
Quote from: Mistwell;764506Looks like Frog God Games is coming out with an OGL adventure, from day 1, with assistance from WOTC.
It can be downloaded for free if you follow the links at Enworld. I did so and gave it a very brief scan, but I can't tell how compatible it is at this point. In a couple places, it simply refers the reader to "5th edition rules." It also has a pregen PC sorcerer - which I don't think we'll see until the PHB comes out.
Quote from: Saplatt;764587It can be downloaded for free if you follow the links at Enworld. I did so and gave it a very brief scan, but I can't tell how compatible it is at this point. In a couple places, it simply refers the reader to "5th edition rules." It also has a pregen PC sorcerer - which I don't think we'll see until the PHB comes out.
Grabbed it, checked the first matching monster I saw - Stirges. AC is one point low, and damage is one point low. So... probably out of date material was used.
I may check more after the festivities tonight.
Quote from: mcbobbo;764636Grabbed it, checked the first matching monster I saw - Stirges. AC is one point low, and damage is one point low. So... probably out of date material was used.
I may check more after the festivities tonight.
That was my gut feeling. But same here, off to a party, then back to set off explosives for the dog, so it will be awhile before I get a chance to really read it through.
Okay, it features, among other things, both a low level sorcerer and a level 3 necromancer. I wasn't party to whatever playtest used sorcerers, so I can't judge that very well.
The necromancer regains hps when he "kills" another creature (except for undead or constructs) equal to 2x the spell's level, or 3x if it's a necromantic spell. (cantrips don't count).
He also has a 1st level spell called "witch-fire bolt." Not defined anywhere and I don't see it in the pdf, so that could be a problem - especially for a novice player or DM.
Could be that they based the character on something they know about the 5e phb or dmg, or it might just be something they made up - since the necromancer is an NPC. (or did something like this appear in one of the earlier playtest modules?)
But it's problematic that a key spell doesn't seem to be defined anywhere (unless it's in the starter set)
I don't have the starter yet, so I can't compare the creatures. Also, some of the creatures are "young" versions of standard creatures (such as child zombies) so that makes it even more difficult.
It's generic enough that I suppose you could play it with the basic rules. It's very much presented as a basic paint-by-numbers piece for fledgling DMs.
But since one of the players is required to play the pre-gen sorcerer, it could be a bit of a dead end (in terms of advancement) if the sorcerer class isn't available until the PHB comes out next month - and it would require that book.
Also, at least three of the pregen classes aren't in the basic rules. (monk, druid and ranger). So, again, you'd have a dead end unless you get the PHB.
Because of that issue (and the issue with the Necromancer's Spell), I don't think I could recommend this to a novice DM at this particular juncture.
Edit: They cite the OGL under the old rules - nothing about any sort of update to it. I don't know enough about intellectual property law to give an opinion whether that's effective or not. But there doesn't seem to be anything new in that regard.