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 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.

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.