|
I remember all this happening around the time of 4E as well, so I predict it will all blow over. WotC has built up an lot of negative press, but they just have so much inertia. It'd be nice to have something take them down and get people into other games, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 21:08 |
|
|
Panzeh posted:There were third party products for 4e.. just none of them published under the GSL because with a decent understanding of IP, you can avoid trouble and still be compatible- in fact you can literally say you're compatible with 4e d&d, you just have to say it's not authorized. I read one a while back, a genuine GSL-powered sci-fi dystopia game. It was called Amethyst. It definitely showed the secret weakness beyond the terms of the GSL: 4e is hard to write for. 3e was easy. Prestige classes are so goddamn easy you can fill a book with lovely ones in a couple of days. 4e you have to write 4 or so balanced new powers for every level your new class has, some of which ideally will have rider boosts that attach to the subthemes in the class, come up with working mechanics that revolve around the roles, plan for paragon paths and epic destinies. It's easy to design 4e monsters, but new classes are genuinely difficult.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:19
|
|
|
Panzeh posted:There were third party products for 4e.. just none of them published under the GSL because with a decent understanding of IP, you can avoid trouble and still be compatible- in fact you can literally say you're compatible with 4e d&d, you just have to say it's not authorized. That's the entire thing, like most of the things released under the OGL with any amount of effort would not need to be But people just use it as it's a easy and free CYA.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:20
|
|
|
Bobby Deluxe posted:For what it's worth I've always found Munchkin to be a much better in with new people who don't play anything. i mean that's one of the worst things you could possibly say about a game, and especially a competitive one; you might as well skip the euphemism and say "it doesn't stand up to understanding or scrutiny"
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:20
|
|
|
Bobby Deluxe posted:I wonder about D&D being dethroned. On the one hand, I worry that without a well known figurehead as an easy 'in' it'll be tougher to get people into the hobby. Like if you tried to get new people to play and you said "Who wants to play ten candles" you're less likely to get "Oh hey I've heard of that, and that it can be fun." I would just love D&D to become d&d. We have Canons and something else at work, but people still say "Can you xerox this?" It would be nice to be invited to a game of d&d and then be asked what "flavor" I want. (I hear the people getting incensed about being asked if they want a coke and getting a pepsi from here.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:21
|
|
|
That's what happened with Goodman Games. They made a business for themselves doing 3e dungeon supplements, then 4e came along, and they made a genuine go at writing dungeons for 4e, but it didn't take, and so they bailed for their own bespoke system in the form of DCC. That it nearly killed their business explains (but does not excuse) the book-burning bitterness towards 4e
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:23
|
|
|
it'd be nice to have terms for TTRPG subgenres, particularly along the axis of "mastery-driven" and "narrative-driven", that were useful and descriptive without either a) being invented by someone trying to make bad-faith attacks on one or the other and b) without D&D constantly muddying the waters by pretending there's no difference for marketing reasons i don't know that D&D will decline in the popular consciousness or even that, if it did, that would be the result, but a man can dream
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:24
|
|
|
I suspect D&D might have a hiccup right now and other systems might get some breathing room, but D&D's not going anywhere.theironjef posted:I read one a while back, a genuine GSL-powered sci-fi dystopia game. It was called Amethyst. There's a 5e edition, btw. Looks interesting, but I never bothered buying.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:35
|
|
|
Lemon-Lime posted:Check out some RPGs you might not know about, such as this half-assed D&D clone by an idiot, a reprint of the busted old editions of Vampire, a game that literally does not have functional mechanics, or an actual good game by the worst person you know. Did something come out about Brendan Conway? Otherwise edited by the worst person you know is valid.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:35
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:I would just love D&D to become d&d. We have Canons and something else at work, but people still say "Can you xerox this?" A decently vocal portion of the player base thinks using house rules or homebrew is declasse and stupid. Having read many such rules for 5e I can see where they are coming from, but still.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:40
|
|
|
Suppose I wanted to get into the shovelware industry but didn’t want to sign up with WotC until the dust settles. I know Chaosium has licensing deals available and Evil Hat games are creative commons of some kind, but what else is out there?
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:44
|
|
|
Siivola posted:Suppose I wanted to get into the shovelware industry but didn’t want to sign up with WotC until the dust settles. I know Chaosium has licensing deals available and Evil Hat games are creative commons of some kind, but what else is out there? Here are all the official programs for 3rd party content for different systems on DTRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/community_content.php The cut the companies take varies per company. There are also systems that just let you create your own content and charge money for it, like Mork Borg and a lot of other OSR systems. I don't have a good list of the systems like that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:47
|
|
|
friendlyfire posted:A decently vocal portion of the player base thinks using house rules or homebrew is declasse and stupid. Having read many such rules for 5e I can see where they are coming from, but still. To be clear, in this imagined scenario, Wanderhome, Apocalypse Keys, and GURPS are all valid flavors.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:48
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:Did something come out about Brendan Conway? Otherwise edited by the worst person you know is valid. Nothing on Conway, no; it was indeed a reference to MDT, but "edited and published by the worst person you know" didn't flow as well. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:52
|
|
|
Megazver posted:Here are all the official programs for 3rd party content for different systems on DTRPG:  I've not even heard of some of these games.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 17:56
|
|
|
Bobby Deluxe posted:I wonder about D&D being dethroned. On the one hand, I worry that without a well known figurehead as an easy 'in' it'll be tougher to get people into the hobby. Like if you tried to get new people to play and you said "Who wants to play ten candles" you're less likely to get "Oh hey I've heard of that, and that it can be fun." Hopefully "Hey you want to play RPGs?" replaces "Hey you want to play D&D?" in the lexicon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:10
|
|
|
Admiral Joeslop posted:Hopefully "Hey you want to play RPGs?" replaces "Hey you want to play D&D?" in the lexicon. There'll need to be a new figurehead. If I say yes to "hey you want to play RPGs?", I don't know if I'm signing up for Pathfinder, Golden Sky Stories, Red Markets or FATAL.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:21
|
|
|
hyphz posted:There'll need to be a new figurehead. If I say yes to "hey you want to play RPGs?", I don't know if I'm signing up for Pathfinder, Golden Sky Stories, Red Markets or FATAL. Conversations famously end after one line of dialog.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:26
|
|
|
Serf posted:I remember all this happening around the time of 4E as well, so I predict it will all blow over. WotC has built up an lot of negative press, but they just have so much inertia. It'd be nice to have something take them down and get people into other games, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I think the difference this time is that back in the 3E->4E changeover their market position wasn't nearly so propped up by Actual Play audiences and similar, and as has been said in this thread and other threads already a lot of that infrastructure is turning hard against them. I'm seeing communities flip on D&D which I never expected to.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:26
|
|
|
theironjef posted:Conversations famously end after one line of dialog.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:29
|
|
|
theironjef posted:Conversations famously end after one line of dialog. Some do. Compare an advert for "D&D club" to "RPG club", or an LFG post for D&D to one for "RPGs".
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:33
|
|
|
Warthur posted:I think the difference this time is that back in the 3E->4E changeover their market position wasn't nearly so propped up by Actual Play audiences and similar, and as has been said in this thread and other threads already a lot of that infrastructure is turning hard against them. I'm seeing communities flip on D&D which I never expected to. Honestly I think their market position is pretty firmly entrenched because of those APs and they don't really need any more help. People are turning on them now, but I don't see that lasting. I also remember the "boycott" of Modern Warfare 2.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:34
|
|
|
hyphz posted:Some do. Compare an advert for "D&D club" to "RPG club", or an LFG post for D&D to one for "RPGs". Compare whatever side point you're making to this example of how your original post would go in real life: Guy 1: Hey, wanna play some RPGs? Guy 2: (internal monologue) I don't know what RPGs, could be anything. What if he wants to play FATAL? How can I get out of this situation? I certainly can't ask for clarification. *Stage direction - Guy 2 awkwardly backs away* You can try to rephrase your original post to be about a flier if you want, but it wasn't, it was about a conversation. It was dumb.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:40
|
|
|
hyphz posted:There'll need to be a new figurehead. If I say yes to "hey you want to play RPGs?", I don't know if I'm signing up for Pathfinder, Golden Sky Stories, Red Markets or FATAL. "Do you want to play sports", "Do you want to watch TV", "do you want to play a board game", try asking better questions
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:40
|
|
|
Personally I'd respond to "Do you want to play D&D?" and "Do you want to play an RPG?" the same. "Depends. What's the pitch?"
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:41
|
|
|
Worst part is it's always gonna be D&D. We can pretend this OGL thing is the straw all we want, but it isn't. Only online people are even gonna know about it, and only a few of them are ever gonna care. And I guarantee you WOTC's next move is to say "Whoopsy-doodles, we've heard your complaints! We have put all new OGL plans on hold. Power to the gamers! You all gain a level in making your voices heard!" Then they'll get a little free goodwill from the websites, the big names will get a news cycle of "We did it!" and the new OGL will roll out much more quietly in a few seasons when the next edition does. Whole conversation about what the next big thing is, moot.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:47
|
|
|
Cool.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:53
|
|
|
It's only online that there is any discussion of this happening. Yes, I see that Legal Eagle's comments are getting flooded with requests to cover this, and that the CoD Discord's #general chat is posting about it, that Foundry VTT released a very special announcement on their Discord, and that my Youtube recommends are currently showing me lots of videos covering this, etc etc.. However, I play both D&D and Pathfinder in-person and the topic has not come up at all at either table, and these are groups that will talk about just about everything going on in the world while rolling dice for a few hours in the evening. I was at my local gaming store this last weekend, during the store's weekly "D&D night" and there were four tables of games going on, and the OGL was not a topic at any of them. Don't get stuck inside the Twitter/online echo bubble, there isn't nearly as much discussion of this amongst gamers as you might think (I'm sure there's plenty of discussion happening inside the companies that use the OGL though).
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 18:54
|
|
|
moths posted:One of the biggest barriers to dethroning D&D is the perception that it simply can't be done. We're seeing that erode in real time, which is a genuinely good thing for the hobby at large. D&D: There is no alternative.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 19:03
|
|
|
The end of the hobby is easier to imagine than the end of D&D.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 19:04
|
|
|
I don't think D&D will dominate forever, but that kind of decline usually happens slowly rather than all at once due to a single gently caress-up. If this OGL agreement is real, I do think it will probably be bad for WotC in the long run, but I wouldn't bet anything on it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 19:23
|
|
|
Take it with all the required grains of salt, but: http://ogl.battlezoo.com/
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 19:42
|
|
|
Comstar posted:How often do an entire management team who have no experience in the industry succeed? Ever? If you're going to go as narrow as "The very top came from a different entertainment company" then I'd say more big companies are ran by outsiders than not. Tuxedo Catfish posted:i mean that's one of the worst things you could possibly say about a game, and especially a competitive one; you might as well skip the euphemism and say "it doesn't stand up to understanding or scrutiny" I think you're both right though, Munchkin isn't a good game. I've had the most fun playing with folks who aren't big board game sorts, and the only people I know who love it don't play many other games. It's also absolute agony to play with people who try to actually play it like it's a Magic tournament, but where they are 'jokingly' obnoxious. Coolness Averted fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Jan 9, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 19:59
|
|
|
CottonWolf posted:Take it with all the required grains of salt, but: Yup, that was circulating around late last night. That's the first time I saw the whole thing laid out since the people commenting on it last night didn't want to show the full text in case there was some way to ID the leaker in there.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 20:00
|
|
|
OGL leak posted:his license only applies to materials You create for use in or as roleplaying games and as game supplements and only as printed media and static electronic files such as epubs or pdfs... Ah, DeCSS all over again. Stay classy and educated, WotC law guys. (Essentially: you can't deem any type of electronic file as "static" because an interpreter can be written for anything. If we end up with an AI that can read an RPG PDF and act as a character generator for that game - and with text AI these days that might be becoming more and more plausible - does that make all those PDFs stop being static files?)
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 20:02
|
|
|
While D&D does lead in brand recognition I do think it's worth pointing out that it is also a gateway drug and the TTRPG market is easier to access than it probably has ever been. You go to itch.io or DTRPG and there's a billion games out there to grab. I can't really see this move tightening WoTCs grasp on the market. The company I think that is most threatened by this has to be Paizo right? And even Starfinder seems like it's pretty clean, content-wise and could just pull a Delta Green and delete the OGL line from their document. JerikTelorian fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jan 9, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 20:14
|
|
|
Coolness Averted posted:How many times has the CEO of your company been a person hired to work the line who was promoted and climbed the ladder due to hardwork and good ideas? Every non or fringe-gamer I've played Munchkin with has identified the "correct" way to play Munchkin, where you save all your biggest one-shot cards for the very end so that the first players with a shot at level 10 are beaten down, and the winner is whoever gets the first chance after everyone's run out of cards.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 20:15
|
|
|
JerikTelorian posted:While D&D does lead in brand recognition I do think it's worth pointing out that it is also a gateway drug and the TTRPG market is easier to access than it probably has ever been. You go to itch.io or DTRPG and there's a billion games out there to grab. I can't really see this move tightening WoTCs grasp on the market. There's inherently more interest and cultural cache in putting out something associated with 5e instead of the much riskier and way more time consuming prospect of trying to make your own standalone thing and selling it. A lot of small publishers and independent writers are dependent on the OGL to keep the lights on, and "well just go make an itch.io game" isn't really a viable alternative for most of them. There's also the part of the 1.1a that's clearly intended to be a knife in the heart for things like VTT programs (presumably because WOTC wants to put out their own, worse version of one or buyout one of the existing programs) podcasts and fan works. Basically anything they've decided they should be profiting off of instead of what they see as leaving money on the table. Blockhouse fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jan 9, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 20:27
|
|
|
Blockhouse posted:There's inherently more interest and cultural cache in putting out something associated with 5e instead of the much riskier and way more time consuming prospect of trying to make your own standalone thing and selling it. A lot of small publishers and independent writers are dependent on the OGL to keep the lights on, and "well just go make an itch.io game" isn't really a viable alternative for most of them. To rehash a conversation from earlier, part of the point is that you don't actually need the OGL to make things that are basically OGL since mechanics aren't copyrightable. The OGL is most useful for giving people tacit approval to make third party content, and the biggest depressing effect of 1.1 is probably going to be the third-party publisher community imploding for a while and not a massive change in what content is produced. (It is 100% a way to gently caress with non-WotC VTTs, though. So that's going to suck.)
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 20:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 21:08 |
|
|
Lurks With Wolves posted:To rehash a conversation from earlier, part of the point is that you don't actually need the OGL to make things that are basically OGL since mechanics aren't copyrightable. The OGL is most useful for giving people tacit approval to make third party content, and the biggest depressing effect of 1.1 is probably going to be the third-party publisher community imploding for a while and not a massive change in what content is produced. This is my stumbling block I think; I don't really get what is "allowed" vs "not". Presumably I could make a custom class with custom abilities that uses Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha and the skills and that's fine, as long as I don't directly reference "Magic Missile" or Illithids or Tarrasques, right? I feel like that's most of the content out there. The Delta Green people said they're just gonna delete the OGL reference in all books going forward and make no other changes. Won't most other content do the same thing?
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 20:43
|
|