Quote from: Aos;353463I'm not a 1e fan, but I think OSRIC is a great idea. However it's a great idea with a shit name.  The other two big retro clones (S&W+ LL) have evocative names. When I read or hear OSRIC I think of an old fat guy sipping tea by the fire complaining about his gout.

If Goodman Games were to release OSRIC commercially I bet they could work it out in the license to call it "EVOCATIVE NAME, powered by OSRIC" or some such. They would also, presumably, replace at least some of the art (which I like, and think is entirely appropriate for a free/at-cost fan-produced game, but can understand why someone hoping to make actual money might not be thrilled with).

Quote from: Zachary The First;353461I think it also got off on the wrong foot with the delay/trouble/confusion over the GSL--companies like Paizo and Necromancer didn't get anything going.

Paizo never would have. They were just looking for a reason to jump ship and start producing rulebooks. Because that's where the money is at, relatively speaking, anyway.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;353515Paizo never would have. They were just looking for a reason to jump ship and start producing rulebooks. Because that's where the money is at, relatively speaking, anyway.

With the end of their contract to do Dragon and Dungeon magazines, I'm sure they were scrambling around to find something else to do independently.

Quote from: ggroy;353520With the end of their contract to do Dragon and Dungeon magazines, I'm sure they were scrambling around to find something else to do independently.

Scrambling is the correct term here, because the contact did not just end but was prematurely terminated by WotC.

(semi-off-track) On the subject of the collapse of 3rd party d20 products and such; aside form the core books and things like "Manual of the Planes", I'd say the majority of stuff I EVER bought for 3rd edition was from 3rd party folks, mostly because there was a broader range of material that piqued my interest I think. They could be a bit more experimental and "out there" than Wizards of the Corporation could, I guess.

IMHO, YMMV, WTFBBQ

Quote from: jeff37923;353523Scrambling is the correct term here, because the contact did not just end but was prematurely terminated by WotC.

Paizo was also the publisher for Star Wars Insider magazine (issues 62-76), which was yanked in 2004.

By the time Dragon and Dungeon magazine were yanked, they probably had a major "once burned twice shy" mentality and didn't want to go through the same thing again playing in somebody else's sandbox.

Quote from: Werekoala;353525(semi-off-track) On the subject of the collapse of 3rd party d20 products and such; aside form the core books and things like "Manual of the Planes", I'd say the majority of stuff I EVER bought for 3rd edition was from 3rd party folks, mostly because there was a broader range of material that piqued my interest I think. They could be a bit more experimental and "out there" than Wizards of the Corporation could, I guess.

IMHO, YMMV, WTFBBQ

Same here. I bought a few non-core WotC books, but they just didn't measure up to the good 3rd Party Publisher material. There was some crap 3PP products, but the really bad 3PP guys ate it early on in the decade.

The major purveyors of d20 glut crap:  Mongoose, Fast Forward, Fantasy Flight, Alderac, etc ... :rant:

Hey, now, I got a couple of checks from FFG - so, aside from MY stuff you mean.

Present company excepted.

What titles specifically?

I didn't do a whole book, but I had quite a few items in "Traps and Treachery" and "Seafearer's Handbook". A few other things here and there.

Quote from: Doom;353315Definitely, splatbooks are shut down thanks to DDI--my players can barely handle the stuff in the DDI, much less trying to keep track of anything not on the preprinted sheet.

On the other hand, WoTC's modules (KOTS, for example) weren't exactly loaded with awesomeness, and there aren't that many options from WoTC in that regard anyway (just how many level 1-3 modules are there from them?), so there really *should* have been a market there.

Agreed, here....WotC has terrible modules, although they are very clean and concise, but most people I know just parse out the content and take the maps, and I've yet to see anyone run one as-is. Hell, when 4E first came out I ran the Keep on the Shadowfell for two sessions before I realized what a trainwreck it was and quickly wrote up a patch-and-replace scenario to keep my game on track.

I see two big problems with the third party market for 4E, which have already been pointed out:

1. DDI
2. 4E is too easy to use

At least, in my circle of gamers that's what seems to keep 3rd party products from regular use. Without exception every gamer at my table who uses DDI shuns the 3rd party content because it's not easy to squeeze in to the DDI framework (not impossible, just not easy). As a DM, I would argue that it's easier than ever to design and create content in 4E, and that lessens the need for 3rd party products.

Now, that said I think Goodman Games is a victim of a different problem entirely: quality issues. Some of their books for 4E have been great (Blackdirge's Dungeon Denizens, Scythe and Shroud, and the recent Azagar's Book of Rituals are three of my faves that I use and abuse) but the modules they have produced so far have not handled the 4E system well at all; they're a mess, honestly. Their character splatbooks are so useless that even my eladrin-loving player who bought their Eladrin book was unhappy and quickly got rid of it. I picked up their "orcs" book and realized it was just more of the same, regurgitated for a new edition.

In fact, the three books I mentioned above stand out because they do something a bit different; one, Blackdirge always does great monsters, and this book does a good job updating their old classics to 4E. The Azagar book fills a gap that WotC has left open by offering up a load of rituals, and relied on a lot of fan contributions, a smart idea. The Scythe & Shroud book was the first 3rd party book I've seen (and that includes my own) to do a good job on class design for 4E...something that's much tougher to do in 4E than 3rd edition.

I also think Mongoose bailed on 4E for similar reasons, although their repurposing in to their own entity with their own brands was ultimately the main reason for the move, the fact that their efforts at 4E support were so half-hearted to begin with only made matters worse.

Anyway, I think there's a market for 4E 3rd party books out there, but the fan support has been on this rollercoaster before, and they don't trust the sleazy operator behind the controls; we've seen a major glut of garbage in the past, and we've seen a period when real quality started to come out. 3rd party publishers need to face up to the fact that people just aren't all that interested in "shovelware" for RPGs anymore.

EDIT: Agh, got derailed in my train of thought on Goodman's 4E modules, which boils down to this: 4E modules need to work a certain way; any DM for 4E knows how to design and build a good module according to the guidelines and toolkits within the rules themselves. Goodman's modules so far have mostly felt like 3.5 modules with 4E stats crammed in, and indeed the first 6 or so I know Goodman himself was on record as saying were being developed a year before 4E was even out, so that they could get them out the door asap....and it shows. This rush to publication may have generated early sales for them, but the quality subsequently hurt later sales, I suspect. And this is what we're seeing now with his post.

Quote from: camazotz;353556Agreed, here....WotC has terrible modules, although they are very clean and concise, but most people I know just parse out the content and take the maps, but I've yet to see anyone run one as-is.

I ran "Keep on the Shadowfell" as-is from start to finish, when 4E was first released and over the summer of 2008.  It was rather bland, but I was familiarizing myself with the 4E system at the time.

After that, my 4E game was largely a homebrew sandbox.  Didn't see much point in playing subsequent WotC 4E modules as-is.

Quote from: Seanchai;353456Not that I've seen. Not any more so than with 3e. Or, more accurately, than there was during the crash of the d20 market. Because it was that, shelves and shelves full of crap products, which is, I think, causing folks to shy away from third party publishers.

I think ggroy has the right of it when he says that it's the Character Builder that's causing the problems - third party products can't appear in it and so why bother?

Seanchai

Every time I see a new 3rd party product (for OGL or GSL, doesn't matter) I really want to get it, but then I remember the countless, endless, seemingly infinite volumes of stuff I had from 2000-2006 or so that I forever regret buying when I could have invested that money in something meaningful.

One of my favorite 3rd party 4E books (Scythe and Shroud) has four cool classes, but they only appear in my games as NPCs because none of my players are willing to take the time to learn how to make a character without DDI hand-holding them through the process. Well, except for my one luddite player, who loves the 3rd party books he has and uses them regularly.

Quote from: camazotz;353560Every time I see a new 3rd party product (for OGL or GSL, doesn't matter) I really want to get it, but then I remember the countless, endless, seemingly infinite volumes of stuff I had from 2000-2006 or so that I forever regret buying when I could have invested that money in something meaningful.

Only times I picked up any 3PP d20 stuff, was when they were already in the bargain bins.  Several interesting things, such as the Scarred Lands setting books and some 3PP modules.

I got back into rpg gaming, shortly after 3.5E was released.  I wasn't even aware of the d20 glut and crash at the time.  At the time I thought all those d20 books were for other rpg games, and largely passed them over.

EDIT:  When I was just a player initially, I didn't pick up many books other than the 3E player's handbook.  Only started buying more books when I was DMing.  (If I had remained a player, I probably wouldn't have bought anything else).