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Feb 24, 2013 -- 11:55PM, Vikingkingq wrote:

Feb 24, 2013 -- 11:41PM, Mand12 wrote:

Not going to happen.  The reason Pathfinder exists is because of the OGL - they aren't going to let other people take their IP for free and turn into a competitor again.

This. Open source is wonderful for many things...making money by selling the thing you just gave away for free isn't one of them.

The problem is, they need something that lets people make content based on their rules. Otherwise fans posting classes/powers/feats/monsters are doing something illegal. 
The change-over from the 3e OGL to the 4e GSL had a number of website casulties who didn't realize how the licence change affected their activities. No licence means any content that references D&D online can be shut down with a quick form e-mail to the Internet Provider.

WotC needs a policy for fans creating their own content. 4e failed with this dramatically because the Fan Site Kit just referenced the GSL which was a big wall of legalese and made no message of non-PDF online content (wikis, message boards, blogs, webcomics). Something simple for their fans that says "this is acceptable, do this." and "this is unacceptable, don't do this."

Likewise, 3PP are a moneymaker for WotC. They cannot publish everything. There are going to be niche products that they just won't want to do. Small play styls or types of campaigns or odd little worlds. And 3rd Party Publishers can do that instead. And everyone who buys the 3PP will have to go and buy a PHB from WotC. That's the point of the OGL. 
Plus, making great 3PP is a good way to be noticed by WotC. It's basically an extended demonstration of writing skill. It lets WotC pick the best talent to make their games and products even better. 


The trick with a new OGL is it needs to be somewhere between the 3e version and the 4e version. 

Reprinting is the big thing. This is where the OGL goofed. It didn't cap the amount of content that could be copied. Copying and reprinting is a must for the sake of referencing, but people shouldn't be able to print their own Core rulebooks. So there should be a percentage cap of content. You cannot reproduce an entire class or race, no can you replace an entire option with a derivitive work. Instead you can create alternate feature and builds that work in conjuncion with existing options. 

Giving away the core rules makes sense. If you're trying to hook people into the game, making them spend $20 for a demo is silly. Give them everything they need to play as a downloadable document and let them have a blast for a couple weeks, and then they'll buy your product. People are always willing to spend money if it's something they honestly, truely enjoy. If it's something to be quickly consumed or just glanced at, their borrow (or pirate) a copy. 

Likewise, Paizo has the right idea by opening up later classes and options. This was something WotC didn't do so it made many of their classes unsupported. Even cool ones like the warlock. Because there was only one place to get content: WotC.  But WotC has this mentality that every book has to have something brand new in it. Which makes it hard to continually update and expand the options for a class/race/module because there is an increasing amount of content. Despite it's "everything is Core" mentality, WotC could not produce enough powers for all their classes. But if a 3PP could, it takes the pressure off WotC. And if people know there might be 3PP support for an oddball class, that makes buying the class in the first place more acceptable. 

Mar 1, 2013 -- 9:43AM, kadim wrote:

Mar 1, 2013 -- 9:33AM, The_Jester wrote:

people shouldn't be able to print their own Core rulebooks.

Do you mean publish or print? 'Cause I won't buy anything I don't have the option of printing off. I don't need them to let folks publish the core books if they're willing to host an SRD themselves.

I do mean publish. We're talking more about publishers and not individuals, although the policy has some overlap in terms of content generation. 

Mar 1, 2013 -- 8:20PM, Vikingkingq wrote:

Likewise, 3PP are a moneymaker for WotC. They cannot publish everything. There are going to be niche products that they just won't want to do. Small play styls or types of campaigns or odd little worlds. And 3rd Party Publishers can do that instead. And everyone who buys the 3PP will have to go and buy a PHB from WotC. That's the point of the OGL. 

I can see the logic, but I don't think that's a gimmie. Not everyone who buys the 3PP actually has to buy a PHB. I don't have to buy a PHB to play Cthulhu d20 or Conan d20, for example. 

Also, it depends on who the consumers for 3PP products are; to the extent that they are experienced RPG players, the chance that they already own a PHB is fairly high, which means D&D doesn't make any additional money.

But you should be required to buy the core rules to make use of any d20 product. This was the big way the OGL failed.
While 3PP appeal to experienced gamers the trick is attracting people that would not normally buy D&D or a WotC product. 

Prior to the OGL ther were still a lot of RPGs. Everyone just made their own rules. With the OGL, anyone could make an RPG book without the problems of making a core ruleset. But with an OGL they use WotC's rules which increases sales from none to some.

Mar 1, 2013 -- 8:20PM, Vikingkingq wrote:

The trick with a new OGL is it needs to be somewhere between the 3e version and the 4e version. 

Reprinting is the big thing. This is where the OGL goofed. It didn't cap the amount of content that could be copied. Copying and reprinting is a must for the sake of referencing, but people shouldn't be able to print their own Core rulebooks. So there should be a percentage cap of content. You cannot reproduce an entire class or race, no can you replace an entire option with a derivitive work. Instead you can create alternate feature and builds that work in conjuncion with existing options. 

Giving away the core rules makes sense. If you're trying to hook people into the game, making them spend $20 for a demo is silly. Give them everything they need to play as a downloadable document and let them have a blast for a couple weeks, and then they'll buy your product. People are always willing to spend money if it's something they honestly, truely enjoy. If it's something to be quickly consumed or just glanced at, their borrow (or pirate) a copy. 
 

This seems contradictory - people shouldn't be able to print their own Core rulebooks, but Wizards should give them away for free?

No contradiction. WotC should make some money off theirs core rules but no one else should be able to. But the very basic core rules should be free (the equivalent of the starter set) and everything else should be usable.