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LuiCypher posted:First, there was a lot of foot-shooting going on with the changes made to the OGL license that just sort of peed in the faces of a lot of people who were interested in producing content for 4e. I'm pretty skeptical on the idea that 4e would have survived if only it had been open to 3rd party content this whole time. 
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May 3, 2017 06:58
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LuiCypher posted:Designers and Dragons seems to suggest that a lot of really bad decisions at Wizards/Hasbro that were made to try to push its revenue up into a 'core' brand are to blame. Don't take this as me disagreeing with your overall point, but I think that WOTC's revised stance on the GSL was at least a little bit understandable as a reaction to what happened with the OGL wherein people basically ran off with their own game whole-hog. P.d0t posted:I'm pretty skeptical on the idea that 4e would have survived if only it had been open to 3rd party content this whole time. On that note, I do wonder why Goodman Games's attempt to expand their Dungeon Crawl Classics line into 4e apparently was so bad that Goodman became a staunch anti-4e partisan. I mean, not being able to produce player-facing content probably didn't matter all that much to them since DCC was never about that, and then DCC's focus on dungeon crawling would on its face seem to be perfect for 4e. Was the writing just that bad? Did people just not twig on it because of 4e as a whole? gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 07:08 on May 3, 2017 |
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May 3, 2017 06:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:Don't take this as me disagreeing with your overall point, but I think that WOTC's revised stance on the GSL was at least a little bit understandable as a reaction to what happened with the OGL wherein people basically ran off with their own game whole-hog. Most people that tried to make 4E-compatible content sucked at it.
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May 3, 2017 08:37
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P.d0t posted:fwiw I'm pretty sure that "guy" is an artist's rendition of 4e designer Rob Heinsoo Huh, I never knew that.  wait  wait 
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May 3, 2017 08:42
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gradenko_2000 posted:On that note, I do wonder why Goodman Games's attempt to expand their Dungeon Crawl Classics line into 4e apparently was so bad that Goodman became a staunch anti-4e partisan. This is speculation, as I haven't read any of the 4E adventure, but the from looking at DCC RPG stuff the kinds of adventures their writers produce would not easily fit into 4E without a change in approach to adventure design. I suspect it was a bad fit for how the designed dungeons. For example, the climax to Sailors on the Starless Sea (one of the early, and quite good) DCC RPG adventure is the level 0 characters having to a ascend a ziggurat with like 30 beastmen on it, and fighting them is a real possibility. There are ways to handle that scenario on 4E, but one of them isn't to say "there are 30 beastmen on the ziggurat, be prepared to roll initiative".
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May 3, 2017 08:48
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May 3, 2017 08:49
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Like pretty much every attempt I ever saw someone make at creating third-party 4E content was gone into with the idea that it would somehow be just as easy as making 3.X stuff because the open secret of making 3.X content is most people didn't really give a poo poo how mechanically rigorous it was A). because 3.X hid its mechanical underpinnings behind layers of obfuscation and natural language and B). people that really cared about rigorous mechanics probably weren't playing a lot of 3.X for that in the first place. I remember off the top of my head Amethyst, some magic/technology mashup for multiple systems including 4E that had all sorts of attempts at new classes and stuff that was pretty lukewarm, some indie press studio whose name I can't even remember that tried to make different class supplements people could buy who eventually ceased operation when they straight-up admitted that it turned out that making 4E compatible material was way harder than they thought it'd be, and, uh, Frank Trollman I guess? From what I know of Goodman Games' 3.X offerings, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever 4E stuff they tried to make wound up not being very good either because they weren't exactly a powerhouse of game design to begin with.
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May 3, 2017 08:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:Don't take this as me disagreeing with your overall point, but I think that WOTC's revised stance on the GSL was at least a little bit understandable as a reaction to what happened with the OGL wherein people basically ran off with their own game whole-hog. The problem was that WotC's approach to the GSL was incoherent. At GAMA, the April before 4e was due to be released at Gencon (I forget the year), they had a panel about the 'new OGL' since it didn't have a name yet and couldn't answer anyone's questions. Four months out from launch they had no answers to the questions that all the 3PPs had been asking them since the announcement of the new edition. It was ridiculous. They also got in touch with some of the big producers of 3e content and tried to sell them early access to the 4e products and GSL, so they could have products ready for launch. I believe exactly 0 people took them up on it, because it was a terrible idea. They wanted a lot of money for the privilege. quote:On that note, I do wonder why Goodman Games's attempt to expand their Dungeon Crawl Classics line into 4e apparently was so bad that Goodman became a staunch anti-4e partisan. Because the first few modules they put out were quite blatantly 3e modules with 4e stats hastily crammed in. And, as people very rapidly found out -- including WotC, let's be honest -- with 4e it was a lot harder to hide half-assed products and bad design than it had been for 3e. You needed to design for fourth edition rather than just stick stats on whatever idea you had. I suspect Goodman's early foray into 4e crashed and burned and left them blaming the new product rather than their own shortcuts. Basically this: thefakenews posted:[T]he kinds of adventures their writers produce would not easily fit into 4E without a change in approach to adventure design. Combined with an unwillingness to change their ways.
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May 3, 2017 08:59
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Okay, so in all likelihood the writing really was that bad, because writing for 4e couldn't be as half-assed as writing for 3e. Makes sense, thanks.Kai Tave posted:I remember off the top of my head Amethyst, some magic/technology mashup for multiple systems including 4E that had all sorts of attempts at new classes and stuff that was pretty lukewarm Ah heck, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish! This Dias Ex Machina outfit has repurposed that Amethyst thing for 4th edition, 5th Edition, Pathfinder, 13th Age, the d20 license (which is different from Pathfinder!), Savage Worlds, and even FATE for crying out loud.
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May 3, 2017 09:08
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Kai Tave posted:Most people that tried to make 4E-compatible content sucked at it. Yeah, I've looked at Goodman's 4e stuff and it's not great. They were adventures, and the writers just didn't get 4e encounter design. The real problem as I've heard it from Joseph Goodman was the GSL's exclusivity clause. Not being able to take so much from 4e was fine, but the biggest problem was that any publisher who wanted to produce GSL products had to agree not to produce anything for 3e/using the OGL at all, indefinitely. This is what LuiCypher is talking about. If you were a 3e third party publisher, you were threatened by the new edition of D&D. Your market was about to shrink, drastically. You could produce for the new edition, but you had to swear off your entire back catalogue and cancel any ongoing projects. The GSL really put third-party publishers between a rock and a hard place. And at the same time the details of the GSL came out, Paizo was starting Pathfinder. Not the RPG, but Rise of the Runelords, which was acting as a rallying point for people interested in pushing the 3e/OGL side of things forward. So you had two competing models of third-party publishing going on at the same time as the big 3e/4e edition war. Some people waited to see what worked out. Some stayed with the d20/OGL crowd. And Goodman was pretty much the only big name to move to the GSL. It's worth remembering that Goodman Games was already known as a quality, reliable publisher at this point. This isn't 2000 with piles of d20 shovel ware in every store. This was 2007. Most of the crap had drained out of the system, and Goodman had been producing quality Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures for years, on a regular schedule. They were a big name. But the 4e adventures didn't sell. For the reasons you've all said about quality or Insider, or maybe just a different player base, 4e third-party poo poo didn't sell. And on the other side of the fence, the 3e crowd was doing alright and looked to be getting better. Kobold Quarterly was a gem. People were buying Monte Cook stuff. And Paizo was starting to push the Pathfinder RPG. This is the change from "3.5 lives" to "3.5 THRIVES" in the early Pathfinder advertising. There was a market beyond 4e, and it was growing. Goodman Games had bet on the wrong horse. But it got worse. Because of the GSL, Goodman Games couldn't produce any content for this new market. They were done for. I'm not certain, but I believe Goodman essentially shut down for awhile. I know Joseph Goodman was selling beloved collectibles out of his garage to make things work. They only came back because of the OSR, by making their own retroclone and pushing that. So Joseph Goodman's hate of 4e is understandable because it pretty much killed his company. They take it a bit too far with the book burning stuff, but the basis is reasonable.
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May 3, 2017 09:11
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thefakenews posted:This is speculation, as I haven't read any of the 4E adventure, but the from looking at DCC RPG stuff the kinds of adventures their writers produce would not easily fit into 4E without a change in approach to adventure design. I suspect it was a bad fit for how the designed dungeons. Yeah, this is pretty much the case. The Dungeon Crawl Classics line has always had a consistent house style, and it just didn't fit 4e at all. i wouldn't say that it's bad writing or design on Goodman's part, just that they weren't aware of the different requirements of 4e and weren't prepared for that. Considering what potatocubed is saying about the lack of access to preview materials for third-party publishers, and that WotC themselves didn't know how to design adventures for 4e early on, it was just a mess. Kai Tave is right when he says that Goodman was never known for their game design chops - they were known for their adventures, not their new rules. They were just a different kind of publisher that unfortunately didn't fit 4e, an OSR publisher before there really was an OSR. edit: Again, it's worth remembering that the kinds of players and the kinds of games 3e facilitated were much wider stylistically than 4e's were. There were people writing stuff for 3e from an old-school perspective, and old-school players, that isn't something 4e included at all. Which is honestly fine; 4e focused on what it wanted to do and was a really good game because of that. But it did take people by surprise, and cause a lot of adjustment to be necessary for pretty much everyone. Not making good content for 4e is okay; it just means that you don't match what kinds of games 4e works for, and should be writing for something else. Arivia fucked around with this message at 09:26 on May 3, 2017 |
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May 3, 2017 09:22
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I'd forgotten about the GSL exclusivity clause, but yeah, that was also some bullshit. And you're making some good points about Goodman Games's situation -- I should probably be more charitable. That said, not long after 4e was released I was trying to get freelance RPG writing gigs so I hied myself to Gencon and asked at the Goodman Games booth about writing for them. The guy I spoke to asked me "What's special about 4e?" and I didn't have an answer for him -- I thought at the time he was screening for suitable writers (fair enough), but with hindsight I wonder if he even had an answer himself.
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May 3, 2017 09:34
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potatocubed posted:Because the first few modules they put out were quite blatantly 3e modules with 4e stats hastily crammed in. And, as people very rapidly found out -- including WotC, let's be honest -- with 4e it was a lot harder to hide half-assed products and bad design than it had been for 3e. You needed to design for fourth edition rather than just stick stats on whatever idea you had. I suspect Goodman's early foray into 4e crashed and burned and left them blaming the new product rather than their own shortcuts. i don't think this was true. rather, the OGL gold rush was over. not because of any inherent quality of 4e or failing of 3e, but the fact that everyone realized by that point that 99% of 3PP OGL books were hot garbage and you couldn't just sell whatever any more. that skepticism on the part of stores and players didn't change or go away just because a new edition was out. nobody was going to give 3PP 4e books the free pass that 3PP 3e books got because everyone still remembered 3PP 3e books, and every store still had a 25 cent bin full of OGL shovelware. one of WOTC's (many, incoherent) goals was to make associating with them for the 4e launch somehow a badge of quality (and to cast further aspersions on 3PP OGL books as low-effort shovelware), but their plan to do so never gelled past maybe planning to do that at some point.
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May 3, 2017 10:41
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The real historical breakpoint was WotC not getting Paizo on board with 4e. If WotC had made an effort to bring major third-party publishers on board, they could have marginalized the 3e competition - it would probably have existed either way, but not as well marketed as Pathfinder was. It wouldn't have been good content - I mean, d20 publishing was only "alright" at it's best - but they wouldn't have built such an effective competitor to D&D.
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May 3, 2017 11:35
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drrockso20 posted:FATE is barely even a game FATE is a fine game? But I prefer Fate Accelerated more now. There were a lot of problems with 4e from a marketing/business perspective. Pulling Dragon Magazine away from Paizo, the GSL being a vague/exclusive risky buy-in vs reliable 3e money, the online tool roll-out being heavily hamstrung by the lead dev murder-suiciding, and no 4e-based video games to widen its exposure to mainstream source were all factors to different degrees. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 12:17 on May 3, 2017 |
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May 3, 2017 12:01
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On the topic of 3rd Party supplements for 4e, the only ones I found even somewhat consistently decent were ones that added new races, as that was an area that was overall fairly hard to screw up, definitely were some interesting concepts in them
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May 3, 2017 12:43
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https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/158949611131/can-we-get-any-details-on-the-types-of-systems-the I trust in Rope Kid
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May 3, 2017 14:01
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Cease to Hope posted:i don't think this was true. rather, the OGL gold rush was over. not because of any inherent quality of 4e or failing of 3e, but the fact that everyone realized by that point that 99% of 3PP OGL books were hot garbage and you couldn't just sell whatever any more. that skepticism on the part of stores and players didn't change or go away just because a new edition was out. nobody was going to give 3PP 4e books the free pass that 3PP 3e books got because everyone still remembered 3PP 3e books, and every store still had a 25 cent bin full of OGL shovelware. Yeah, I was about to come in and say the same thing. By the time 4e came out, everyone who wasn't still hardcore into 3.x had realized that the majority of the third party OGL stuff was shovelware. The third party D&D well had been poisoned, and that was a hard thing to get over.
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May 3, 2017 14:14
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It may have been false bravado, but Morrus was pretty clearly happy with the 4e sales of the Zeitgeist adventure path. I can't think of anyone else who claimed any success, however.
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May 3, 2017 14:14
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Now that you mention it, given the GSL, how did people manage to publish these adventures that were statted across multiple systems? Zeigeist for one, War of the Burning Sky for another. Did WOTC just not care after some point?
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May 3, 2017 14:18
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Hey guys, Legend of the Five Rings Fourth Edition RPG questions. One: the old thread I just dug up had a link to a Free RPG Day module but the link appears dead. Anybody got that for me or other free content links? Two: are there any tricks, level subs, ancestors, whatever the gently caress character creation tricks one can use to jam Iaijutsu into one's School Skills or consider it a High Skill? This is just a point of arcane curiosity regarding Prodigy Advantage characters and Ikoma Shadow Lion characters in particular. Yes, yes, I am well aware GMs can just declare it so, I want to see an official trick if one exists.
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May 3, 2017 16:23
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gradenko_2000 posted:Now that you mention it, given the GSL, how did people manage to publish these adventures that were statted across multiple systems? Zeigeist for one, War of the Burning Sky for another. I'd point the finger at David Kenzer, because Kenzer knew his poo poo when it came to copyright/trademark law. It helps that he is a lawyer. Designers and Dragons quotes him saying with regards to publishing Kingdoms of Kalamar for 4e: David Kenzer, c/o Designers and Dragons posted:[T]hat is not copyright infringement. [C]opyright infringement is basing your work on someone else's creative expression. Rules are not creative expression. Also, it is not 'based' on their rules. It happens to 'work with' their rules. Should every programmer than writes a program that works with a computer have to pay the owner of the OS it runs on? I think not. I could be wrong, but fortunately, the US and International copyright laws agree with me. While Kenzer knew how to thread a needle when it came to copyright law, it bears reminding that in the RPG industry litigation is often used as a tool to kill competition before it gets too big. Even if they're not right in how they are interpreting the law, large publishers like TSR could often get away with using the high costs of lawyers and litigation to force smaller publishers to acquiesce. Many small publishers were nearly destroyed by TSR's heavy-handedness in this regard, and Kevin Siembieda came this close to strangling WotC in the crib through litigation. Cease to Hope posted:i don't think this was true. rather, the OGL gold rush was over. not because of any inherent quality of 4e or failing of 3e, but the fact that everyone realized by that point that 99% of 3PP OGL books were hot garbage and you couldn't just sell whatever any more. that skepticism on the part of stores and players didn't change or go away just because a new edition was out. nobody was going to give 3PP 4e books the free pass that 3PP 3e books got because everyone still remembered 3PP 3e books, and every store still had a 25 cent bin full of OGL shovelware. This is also really important to remember. By the time of 4e's release, the d20 boom had already busted big time. To expect similar levels of sales for 4e supplements is a fool's errand. Meeting Rob Heinsoo was easily the highlight of my Gen Con last year. If you ever get the chance, you should always talk to Rob Heinsoo. LuiCypher fucked around with this message at 17:54 on May 3, 2017 |
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May 3, 2017 17:49
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What's the best place to quickly sell RPG stuff? I have a ton of Star Wars Saga Edition - including rare/wanted books like Starships of the Galaxy and the Old Republic Campaign Guide - and I'm looking to sell.
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May 3, 2017 18:44
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The Star Wars Saga edition subreddit is apparently fairly active, you could try to hawk them there.
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May 3, 2017 18:51
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Noble Knight games is pretty good. You can send them a list of what you want to part with, and they'll send you an estimate. They'll also cover the shipping costs by sending you a bunch of shipping labels. I sold off like seven milk crates of old pre-4e D&D and oWoD stuff and they made it pretty painless. You could also try Wayne's Books. It's a smaller operation so you're dealing with Wayne directly.
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May 3, 2017 18:51
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dwarf74 posted:What's the best place to quickly sell RPG stuff? I have a ton of Star Wars Saga Edition - including rare/wanted books like Starships of the Galaxy - and I'm looking to sell. I am in the market to complete my SW RPG collection, believe it or not. Let's chat and compare prices.
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May 3, 2017 19:19
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Covok posted:I am in the market to complete my SW RPG collection, believe it or not. Let's chat and compare prices.
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May 3, 2017 19:23
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gradenko_2000 posted:Now that you mention it, given the GSL, how did people manage to publish these adventures that were statted across multiple systems? Zeigeist for one, War of the Burning Sky for another. WotC eventually gained a bit of perspective and removed the exclusivity clause from the GSL. Too little, too late mostly but hey, Zeitgeist is cool.
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May 3, 2017 19:25
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I've come to realize that an authentically Buddhist-themed RPG would be one of those irritatingly meta games where the goal is to stop playing because the game is an unsatisfying experience.
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May 3, 2017 19:34
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Rockopolis posted:I've come to realize that an authentically Buddhist-themed RPG would be one of those irritatingly meta games where the goal is to stop playing because the game is an unsatisfying experience. Make a game where you're all devotees of Mara and your goal is to prevent someone from reaching enlightenment. e: ooh, it could be a Resistance-style game where nobody knows each others' identity! Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 19:40 on May 3, 2017 |
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May 3, 2017 19:38
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this is like saying an authentic christian RPG is mostly about humility and repentance, as opposed to, say, dogs in the vineyard or crusader kings 2. there is an obvious gap between religion as practiced and dogmatic claims religions make about their own practice, and there's a lot of potential to fit a game into that gap.
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May 3, 2017 19:39
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Make a game where you're all devotees of Mara and your goal is to prevent someone from reaching enlightenment. Please make it Shin Megami Tensei's Mara that you're devoted to.
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May 3, 2017 19:59
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You can forgo personal Englithenmet and become a Boddhisatva to help other people escape the wheel of transmigration
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May 3, 2017 20:04
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A true Christian rpg would be about being a working class individual in an oppressively capitalistic society who goes to church every week while the priest fills his head with right-wing propaganda that the priest claims is religious dogma.
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May 3, 2017 20:06
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Covok posted:A true Christian rpg would be about being a working class individual in an oppressively capitalistic society who goes to church every week while the priest fills his head with right-wing propaganda that the priest claims is religious dogma. 
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May 3, 2017 20:08
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Most RPGs are American
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May 3, 2017 20:09
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Covok posted:Most RPGs are American And therefore Protestants (Not True Christians)
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May 3, 2017 20:13
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Plutonis posted:And therefore Protestants (Not True Christians) As a catholic, I can agree to your parthesis statement.
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May 3, 2017 20:16
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Plutonis posted:And therefore Protestants (Not True Christians) We already have a Mormon RPG though. 
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May 3, 2017 20:18
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Bah, there hasn't been a True Christianity since Romans stopped persecuting them. Once it became a major religion it fell straight into the trap that all organized religions eventually fall into. You might find a handfull of believers here and there who actually follow the virtues and teaching of Christ, but as a group they're a wash.
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