Wow. I had no idea how Bat Shit Crazy Christopher Brady is. I mean. fucking. wow.

The OGL was one of the best things to happen to this industry and the hobby. It created far more than it destroyed. Most of the hand-wringing and teeth-grinding is easily traced back to pompously stupid business decisions. Not the OGL. Idiots who had no business being in business. From people who pumped out CRAPTASTIC poorly edited poser-art filled drivel to store owners picking up gads of anything with a d20 logo on it without so much as a moment of research... Just like in every disruptive innovation in every fucking industry since the beginning of time, some rise to the top and MANY fall to the bottom. It has ZERO at all to do with the disruption.

So, I'm curious CB, just what part of the stupid tripped you up? And then show me on the doll where it's the OGL's fault.

Unless that fucking license jumped off the page, kicked you in the nuts and stole your goddamn lunch money I'm pretty sure whatever happened you did it to yourself. So pull your big kid pants up and stop fucking crying about it.

What a bunch of piss-filled self-loathing disguised as authority.

"Boo Hoo, The OGL did bad things to me. Boo Hoo."

Jesus someone get this loser a tissue.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;905516Anyway, this is a bit of an odd case, as Paizo themselves put that stuff up on the web. I'm willing to bet that they're willing to let people play stuff for free, in hopes that there is some portion that buy stuff eventually.

Since it's published under the OGL and is open content, they don't have much choice.

Well, by this thread alone Pathfinder is turning out to be the most interesting thing I've ever bought.  I bring up Exalted or Dark Heresy and I get a shrug, but this shit is awesome.  Keep going guys!

Quote from: Crüesader;905632Well, by this thread alone Pathfinder is turning out to be the most interesting thing I've ever bought.  I bring up Exalted or Dark Heresy and I get a shrug, but this shit is awesome.  Keep going guys!

PFRPG being arguably the most popular and widely played RPG in its timeframe is destined to attract plenty of "love to hate" comments. There are, for example, certain sites where expressing hate towards PFRPG (while simultaneously swearing on the Holy Cross that Fantasy Craft and/or Dungeon World are best things that happened to the hobby) is a considered the most crucial element of local rite of passage.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;905635PFRPG being arguably the most popular and widely played RPG in its timeframe is destined to attract plenty of "love to hate" comments. There are, for example, certain sites where expressing hate towards PFRPG (while simultaneously swearing on the Holy Cross that Fantasy Craft and/or Dungeon World are best things that happened to the hobby) is a considered the most crucial element of local rite of passage.

TBH I have to admit there are very few gaming systems I've played that made me dislike the system.  Most of the time, it's the crowd that flocks to it (See: Vampire, Star Wars).

Quote from: yosemitemike;905611Since it's published under the OGL and is open content, they don't have much choice.

Is there something in the OGL that says they have to put it up on the web for free?

Quote from: Crüesader;905636TBH I have to admit there are very few gaming systems I've played that made me dislike the system.  Most of the time, it's the crowd that flocks to it (See: Vampire, Star Wars).

Well, if you ask me, I don't like mechanics relying on too many (subjectively speaking) variables and dice rolls to get the shit done, none of which can be easily dropped without burying oneself in heavy system butchering/tweaking.

Then there's weird lingo, like "flogums save versus habbaryan element and grant 10 blopooth per semi-quantil of fray, with the exception of skirmish-based encounters".

And I have a serious problem with systems that require truckloads of additional accessories to run.

"Roll 1d6 to hit" + charsheet featuring two fields: "already dead?" and "shit that helps me to not die" for me, thank you very much.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;905639Is there something in the OGL that says they have to put it up on the web for free?

No but it grants the right to copy the text for any purpose the user see fits as long as he continues to keep it open content. Hence we get stuff like http://www.d20srd.org/ for 3.5 itself and http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ an alternative to Paizo's PRD site. So if they don't do it somebody else will.

Quote from: estar;905643No but it grants the right to copy the text for any purpose the user see fits as long as he continues to keep it open content. Hence we get stuff like http://www.d20srd.org/ for 3.5 itself and http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ an alternative to Paizo's PRD site. So if they don't do it somebody else will.

To be fair, they could have kept more material Product Identity than they did, such as monster names and flavor text, etc., to say nothing of the new material that they create, such as the kingdom-building rules in Ultimate Campaign. That they didn't go the Monte Cook-route of crippling their Open Game Content is a point in their favor.

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;905574Ok, so in your world, it's perfectly ok to sell used game books, it's just not ok to buy them. Have fun with that.

Edit: Oh, by the way, you get bonus points for claiming I'm creating a strawman by comparing RPGs to video games, when I never once mentioned the second-hand video game market.

Quote from: kosmos1214;905575Sounds like it to me.

Then you both need reading comprehension skills because that's what you want to believe I said.  Projecting much?

Quote from: Dave R;905584You're/we're being trolled, man.  The guy's an apologist for outright piracy, so he's trying to draw an equivalence.  But in the wild, no non-trolls are saying don't buy used.

And where did I say this?  If you're not going to support the publisher, why bother paying for it?  It's throwing money at the wrong people.  As for me, unless there's no other way to obtain it (And the only reason I emphasized that is because no one would pay attention it, or conveniently try and twist my words, yet again...), I will buy the product new, because it supports the creator.

The various percentages fluctuate between 10/30% profit for the average retailer.  The rest goes to the publisher/creator (which isn't as much as it looks as they have various costs too.)  However, buying a used product sends 100% the often slightly lower price to the retailer, and 0% to the publisher/creator.

Here's something else a lot of people don't seem to get:  No one sees the actual sales of the product, they extrapolate by the amount of money being reported/acquired.  And if something is being sold really well, but only when it's being bought used, the creator will look at the fact that they're not getting any money and believe that the product is not what people want after all.  It's what happened to the Darksider video game series, it did reasonably well as a used product, but no one (hyperbolic) bought it new.  So THQ (who is not going to see Gamestop's numbers) believed that the game wasn't good enough and shut down the studio that made it, shortly before shutting down their own operations.

So buying new is showing the publishers/creators that you want more of the said product.  That is what I'm advocating.  But if you only used, then you (the general, not anyone specific) have to accept that the creator is not going to see the money and make assumptions based on that, rather than what people say.  Which MAY (and that's a big maybe, especially in this hobby, because quite frankly profits are nigh non-existent) end up discontinued.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;905654If you're not going to support the publisher, why bother paying for it?  It's throwing money at the wrong people.

An interesting observation.

Still, you're discussing merely a fraction of the Big Picture, and you're not taking into account other factors, like the fact that people often buy more than a single copy of a product, be it a game or a book, or whatever. And it's not that all people are suddenly gonna organize and share/resell only one copy of any given product ad infinitum.

Side note: what with public libraries (a book is bought only once, then readers are gonna read it instead of buying their own copy = publisher/author are losing money)? Or events like this one:



tl;dr: I don't think buyers are supposed to sleep worse because they resell stuff.

Quote from: trechriron;905610The OGL was one of the best things to happen to this industry and the hobby. It created far more than it destroyed. Most of the hand-wringing and teeth-grinding is easily traced back to pompously stupid business decisions. Not the OGL.

According to statements by WOTC staff and one I talked to. Actually Yes the OGL was a bad thing.

Firstly it proved how uttely false the "too many buckets" claim was as what did OGL do? It created nigh overnight a bazillian buckets. And most of those early buckets meant people were coming back to WOTC to pick up the core books. This was the initial success of OGL. It created a huge influx of sales.

Secondly it ended up being used in ways it wasnt intended. To literally steal older games under the cover of OGL. This still irks some over there. But is a minour point to the next.

Thirdly people started using it and the SRD to make complete games that didnt need the core WOTC books and here kids is where it fell apart massively for WOTC. Then WOTC made a series of poor choices leading up to 4e and then it really fell apart.

Fourth is as you point out. There was alot of dross and eventually it was a vast morass where any gems tended to get lost in the ocean of cheap costume jewelry.

Everyone I've talked to though has stated that initially the OGL was an astounding success. But very quickly became an ever increasing problem. The OGL also didnt really help the gaming industry. But thats a story for another day/thread.

The OGL though was a godsend to 3e fans as it allowed Pazio to swoop in and acquire a huge chunk of WOTCs customer base and prove why the edition treadmill and the "5 year plan" is a failure when executed like 4e was. Which nearly executed WOTC.

Quote from: Crüesader;905632Well, by this thread alone Pathfinder is turning out to be the most interesting thing I've ever bought.  I bring up Exalted or Dark Heresy and I get a shrug, but this shit is awesome.  Keep going guys!

Thats because Pathfinder is one of those really weird cases of being at the right place at the right time and having the jailer not only hand you all the keys. But then effectively handing you all the inmates too while trying to build a new jail that looks more like a hockey rink. ahem.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;905654But if you only [buy] used, then you (the general, not anyone specific) have to accept that the creator is not going to see the money and make assumptions based on that, rather than what people say.

You're trying to argue price theory to gamers.  Good luck with that, man.

This is the same reason the only video games I've ever paid full price on release day for are the Borderlands series.  I'm sending the "more of this, please" signal.  I've also given John Wick a couple hundred dollars to convince him to keep producing stuff because he was going to quit the industry due to massive piracy of his $5 games.

All the idiots ranting about how the OGL wasn't a problem - the OGL did exactly what it was intended to do, which was keep the publisher of D&D from being able to control it.  That's great for fans.  It sucks if selling D&D is what you need to keep the lights on and feed your family.

Like it or not, reselling used games, piracy, and the insistence on "free culture" is why things like Netflix, PSNow and Steam exist: they allow the publisher to control the content.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;905642Well, if you ask me, I don't like mechanics relying on too many (subjectively speaking) variables and dice rolls to get the shit done, none of which can be easily dropped without burying oneself in heavy system butchering/tweaking.

Then there's weird lingo, like "flogums save versus habbaryan element and grant 10 blopooth per semi-quantil of fray, with the exception of skirmish-based encounters".

And I have a serious problem with systems that require truckloads of additional accessories to run.

"Roll 1d6 to hit" + charsheet featuring two fields: "already dead?" and "shit that helps me to not die" for me, thank you very much.

https://youtu.be/gtP1eyF8LgI

Quote from: JesterRaiin;905657

Fucking hell!

Quote from: daniel_ream;905559I'm not sure how anyone who plays video games could have missed THQ and Atari going under.  That and the used game "problem" being covered ad nauseam when the Xbox One launched.  Ever bought a THQ game (DiRT series, I'm looking at you) used and discovered that a third of the game was "DLC" already on the disc?  Those are all attempts to regain revenue from the used market because the AAA game market has crashed.

Warhammer. It was all Warhammer.

On a sidenote, the new Homefront is shit. So shit MKIceandFire hasn't bothered to do more than two videos on it (and he playthroughs some shitty games).