I was reading the following article from before the release of 3.x:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e

At the time of the article, the Open License was still a consideration, and Ryan Dancey laid out what they expected to happen.  What's interesting to me is that the reasons that the OGL were seen to work (primarily in relation to "The Theory of Network Externalities") may no longer apply.  

D&D was the 'leader', and competing product drove more people to D&D.  Considering the 'boom' cycle, this seemed to be largely correct.  

It would seem that if Pathfinder is the market leader, then the release of Next will help them more than anyone else (assuming, again, that the tenants that led to the OGL were correct - as they appeared to be since everything he laid out as an expectation became observed fact).

There's a certain amount of truth to the fact that many people lean towards playing games with rules that they already know.

But ... Pathfinder itself has shown that a well-known system (3.5) with a few tweaks can be pretty successful as well.

5e isn't really all that radical of a departure from 3.5e. Same abilities, same races, same classes, same d20 mechanic. Many of the same or similar spells, equipment and class abilities.

I don't think the difficulty in learning a few new rules (like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic) will be much of a problem.

The OGL gave everything away and now WotC has to live in the aftermath of their idiocy. Unless 5e is 100% open OGL style, there will be a free 5e-clone wandering around soon enough. After the GSL debacle, I expect we will see a D20 license style thingie when 5e hits, and maybe even a full OGL - for the Basic PDF. We will see.

I don't know if 5e does anything positive for Paizo. With so many games on the market, I don't see why anyone would be playing Pathfinder unless they are enjoying Pathfinder so I don't see a big negative for Paizo either.

WotC'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.

Quote from: CRKrueger;761384The OGL let WotC sell more D&D books since the heyday of the hobby.

You are mistaking the D20 license for the OGL. The D20 license sold D&D books, while the OGL sold Pathfinder books.

Quote from: Spinachcat;761379The OGL gave everything away and now WotC has to live in the aftermath of their idiocy. Unless 5e is 100% open OGL style, there will be a free 5e-clone wandering around soon enough. After the GSL debacle, I expect we will see a D20 license style thingie when 5e hits, and maybe even a full OGL - for the Basic PDF. We will see.

I don't know if 5e does anything positive for Paizo. With so many games on the market, I don't see why anyone would be playing Pathfinder unless they are enjoying Pathfinder so I don't see a big negative for Paizo either.

What's more idiotic,  deciding to open your game or trying to undo that choice?

Linux is a thing.  A stupidly successful thing, in fact.  And a lot of folks make a lot of money selling things that surround the OS, instead of the OS itself.  Android, for example.

Pathfinder is like Android.  It's an ecosystem built around the free thing.

4e was like the Windows phone.  Based on something familiar,  using the same brand, but completely and totally different underneath.

I heard a rumor that MS was considering running Android apps over the Windows phone.  Sort of aping Amazon, really. This strikes me as an awesome idea.

5e OGL could be that, too.

Quote from: mcbobbo;761391I heard a rumor that MS was considering running Android apps over the Windows phone.  Sort of aping Amazon, really. This strikes me as an awesome idea.

Through virtualization or by launching a child process of the android OS that sandboxes just for the app in question?

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.

The OGL was selling all kinds of books long before Pathfinder was created. The movement was not JUST the d20 licensed material, it also had substantial OGL only non-d20 licensed offerings.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;761353... What's interesting to me is that the reasons that the OGL were seen to work (primarily in relation to "The Theory of Network Externalities") may no longer apply. ...

This may be one reason. Considering the success of Pathfinder, 3.x built up a large network and when WOTC abandoned them, Paizo took up the mantle and supports this vibrant network to this day. But it wasn't the ONLY reason some think the OGL was successful. In fact, it would have been hard to prove the theory applied to the OGL until Paizo successfully inherited said network from the original "best most widely known" game.

I believe many advocates of the OGL (me being one of them) considered it successful because of the opportunity it provided. It allowed the little guy to publish for the popular game. It spawned variants and new ideas (like Arcana Evolved, Fantasy Craft, Grimm, etc.), new genres with familiar rules and even variations on old ideas like the Dragonstar reboot of Spelljammer (essentially). It also inspired other game companies to open up their rules for development (like Action! System, FUDGE and D6). When I first heard of the OGL Network Externalities seemed like a good idea (who doesn't want to build the hobby base?) BUT it was far afield compared to other ideals that seemed more imminently applicable.

For what we know now, I think more specific questions may be in order. Like, if 5e is released under the OGL will it begin building a new network or build upon the existing one? If Pathfinder then takes OGL parts of 5e and incorporates them into PF, will 5e remain "the subset" of the original network or simply be a part of it? If D&D and PF find themselves under the same OGL umbrella, what will the network look like 5 years from now? What will the companies offerings look like? Will there be cooperation in an effort to continue to grow the network despite system/game specifics? Or will we see religious wars akin to the tribal disputes of popular religions?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;761353... D&D was the 'leader', and competing product drove more people to D&D. Considering the 'boom' cycle, this seemed to be largely correct. ...

I don't see how competing product "outside the network" drives more people into the network? I don't know how the boom cycle proves that point. Certainly 3.x grew the D&D market (the network got bigger), and the demand for d20 product was HOT, so more stuff was published and available. Hence the boom. However, other games thrived during this time, and I can't see how World of Darkness, Exalted, Shadowrun, GURPS, Savage Worlds, etc. drove anyone to the leader? The boom has a direct correlation to the increase in size of the D&D network, and I believe it more likely as the D&D network grew, so did the somewhat related "RPG network". This network only exists for those who are interested in trying games not D&D, don't like D&D, play other games and D&D, etc. So it seems more likely that the success of the leader increased the success of the followers.

I may just have misunderstood what you were saying. :-)

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.

The OGL sold a lot of Hardcovers for WotC and lots of non-OGL splats for people who wanted options for the system.  Pathfinder AP buyers still needed WotC books.

It's only after people figured out they could just sell the friggin SRD reformatted, that WotC panicked and tried to get out of the OGL first with 3.5 (here's all the same splats...again).  and finally thought they could actually walk away from it and people would follow.

The OGL didn't create Pathfinder as a competitor, WotC created Pathfinder as a competitor, when they walked away from selling the #1 game, told all their 3pp people to go fuck themselves or get in line and thought people would blindly follow the brand.

The OGL brought D&D back from irrelevance, WotC dropping the OGL almost drove it back there.

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.

When a company pulls a 'New Coke' there only a limited range of options for the consumers. Yeah you could go to Pepsi but for many the point of drinking Coke was the specific flavor. Not just any carbonated cola would do.

But with the "new coke" of D&D 4e, the hobby had the option of continuing with the discontinued rules. The result was a huge split of Wizard's monolithic base.

It illustrate of the tension between allowing IP holders to profit from their creations and the common cultural heritage of mankind. It is important to allow creators to profit from their works even if they are a "souless" corporation. But you have to keep in mind that creative works become a shared heritage as well.

If say a 1,000,000 fans is want it took for Warner Brothers to keep Babylon 5 going, but then it drops to say 900,000 fans a year later. Now Warner Brother dollar is better spent on other projects. Warner Brothers is ethically obligated to their shareholders to make the most of the money they spend. But is discontinuing B5 fair to the remaining fans just because they dropped below a "magic" number.

If a local for profit theater was putting on a Shakespeare series and did well on the first two plays. But then third one didn't pull high enough numbers and theater opted out of doing a fourth play. Because Shakespeare is in the public domain those interested would have the option of attempting to continuing the series in another venue.

It may fail, it may middle along, or it may be better than the original run. What important they had the freedom to try to make a go of it.

To tie this back to D&D because 3.5e was under a open license, a group of people, Paizo, was free to make a go of it. It could have tanked, it could have just middled along. But as it turned out it was a resounding success story.

Quote from: Spinachcat;761379The OGL gave everything away and now WotC has to live in the aftermath of their idiocy. Unless 5e is 100% open OGL style, there will be a free 5e-clone wandering around soon enough. After the GSL debacle, I expect we will see a D20 license style thingie when 5e hits, and maybe even a full OGL - for the Basic PDF. We will see.

I guess some people just don't like being free.

OGL and the D20 license were Wizards' way to save their D&D brand from the horrible legal debacle caused by the bad legal advice accepted by TSR. The OGL and D20 license clarified what you can and cannot do as a fan or as a third-party company, saved A LOT of time and mess (and lawyers' fees) associated with having to negotiate a specific license with each 3PP, and saved D&D's reputation from being "that game which's publisher sues fan sites".

They made a killing with D&D 3.xE. Especially because a huge number of 3PPs were making supporting material for D&D without any cost whatsoever for Wizards. And a huge amount of fan material (again, no cost for WotC) was also available online for free. So yes, it made Pathfinder possible, but also made D&D 3.xE immensely popular.

Wizards' mistake, as others have pointed out before me, was walking away from their D20 success story to create a completely different (though quite good) game which didn't really cater to the needs and wants of a large chunk of the D20 customer base.

Nothing to do with the subject at hand, but I just realized that golan2072's avatar is a lizard head viewed from above. My mind kept interpreting that as some sort of mystic monolith in a shadowy canyon viewed from in front.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;761568Nothing to do with the subject at hand, but I just realized that golan2072's avatar is a lizard head viewed from above. My mind kept interpreting that as some sort of mystic monolith in a shadowy canyon viewed from in front.

Hehehehe... Indeed, a Painted Dragon's (Stellagama stellio) head viewed from above. I meet them in the 'wild' (including in urban areas) all the time. Cute little dragons! And yes, they have evolved a "rocky" texture and colour as camouflage.

Quote from: CRKrueger;761398The OGL didn't create Pathfinder as a competitor, WotC created Pathfinder as a competitor, when they walked away from selling the #1 game, told all their 3pp people to go fuck themselves or get in line and thought people would blindly follow the brand.
.

Didn'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).