Some Interesting 4ed OGL News

[Thore_Ironrock]

I just have this feeling the more I read about 4th edition D&D that everything is going to have a fee, it will be turned into a giant pay-per-everything game. Now I don't mind paying for a nice rule book, but the online stuff is sounding to be like Hasbro is trying to squese every squirt from this cash cow. Online Membership fees, Community developer fees, store your game online fee, online tools fee, updates fee, etc...

Maybe I am over reacting.

You're probably right if you're talking about getting in on the ground floor of the DDI project. If you play every week in your basement it's just the cost of the books. The online stuff is going to be pricey, make no mistake. However, there are people willing to pay it.

As for 4E and Fantasy Grounds, I don't have any official word yet -- but if you ask me it isn't looking very good for something like a 4E SRD. The problem is that this new OGL is not a document, but a reference guide for the PHB; which to me means those rules cannot be duplicated verbatim and could only used to translate gaming material (stats, skills, rules, etc) into published material where applicable. On the other hand I don't believe they are going to let you "translate" the rules into another form of written text either, as that is a derivative of the copyrighted work. However, they might let you do an adventure that references 4E material, you just would not be able to have the 4E/OGL-ish rules "built" into the interface. Say if we converted a 4E Goodman Games adventure to Fantasy Grounds, it just would not be associated with module information in the way we do it with d20. The only way you're going to be able to reference 4E rules directly online it sounds is if you're subscribed to DDI.

This is conjecture on my part at the moment, I'm hoping to find out more soon. Justing sharing my current thoughts for those who have been asking.

[kalmarjan]

steaming pant-load though

Oh, that one just took the cake. Another one to add to my repertoire of great sayings.

As for the pay to play... Notice that in the preview boards/Dragon/Dungeon online WOTC is talking about making the cost of a subscription "about the amount of a subscription for a MMORG".

That is what scares me, the mind set that D&D can become akin to a MMORG. You see, aside from the core books, everything that was D&D for me is now gone. Dragon and Dungeon now require a monthly online subscription for content that so far has mirrored what I would have received online before the supposed "online" magazine came to be.

What bothers me about this is that I no longer have the option of going to the magazine store (okay, the cigarette store) that carries my magazines. I cannot browse through them to decide if I want to buy them. I now have to rely on the old "trust" that the magazines will be good. At a cost that saves me nothing from getting a yearly subscription.

All in all, paying the 5000$ is a bad business move in my books. Then again, I am not a RPG developer. I would not be justified spending the amount of money to get a jump from the competition of a few months.

A few people have stated that it would be easy to get your money back from Gen Con. I know nothing about how the whole RPG publishing scene works, but I do know a LOT about recovering your costs from the revenue generated from a finished product. In a restaurant, an item that cost you 5000$ would need to generate about 16000$ worth of revenue so the owner of the restaurant would not fire your butt. The economy could be different, but I do not think that it would be that much by far.

So, judging a supplement/rule system based on the OGL selling for a 30$-40$ price tag, (lets assume the latter, for conservative basis, and for the "deal" for Gen Con) you would need to sell out 533 units to make up your costs.

The above assumes that the 5000$ price tag represents a healthy 30% cost of your final ticket.

Now, if you do not buy the kit, you are limited to selling your item AFTER Gen Con. The OGL goes live Jan 1st, 2009. So, if a company waits, announces at Gen Con that they are working on a 4E release, they not only save that 5000$ price tag, but they also run the risk of losing out to their customers who may go to the others.

This is all assuming that we run under the same paradigm as 3E. Assuming that WOTC does not hack off the movement at the knees.

Man, I am glad I am going SW.

Sandeman

[Oberoten]

** Puts on the Cynic-Cap **

Perhaps they sell the $5000 package as a "Make some money on selling it to the rubes before we show them what a bum deal it is?" Aka... "Better get it ready before Gen-Con because after nobody will buy it."

[Tailz Silver Paws]

As for the pay to play... Notice that in the preview boards/Dragon/Dungeon online WOTC is talking about making the cost of a subscription "about the amount of a subscription for a MMORG".

I would find more value in paying for say, WOW, far more interaction and action. If it WAS an actual game, maybe the same price as a MMORG would do it - but users would want so much content from it. But so far I don't know if you can run a game by it like how we do with Fantasy Grounds - maybe you can?

[joshuha]

Well its still early and we don't have all the details but in short it will be a VTT like Fantasy Grounds. However, you will pay out the nose for it.

It appears you are locked down to their content and cannot import things from the outside.

• Want a new tileset for maps, thats a package you have to buy.
• Want some new monsters to put on the map, have to buy the token pack (and I hope they don't randomize like DDM).
• Want to have a reference to that feat in Complete Mage, have to buy the book and pay to unlock it in the DDI.
• Etc.

They are going to bleed the gamers dry to get that content into their version of the digital table. Now all that could change, maybe pay a higher subscription fee or something to get more of that stuff unlocked but even at say $9.99 a month you are talking $120 per year per player plus all the books? It certainly will be a cash cow for them but from what I have seen so far the value isn't there. But who knows, that may all change before it goes live.

[Kilahm]

Forgive me if this sounds too simplistic, but I think you are all being way too negative as to what you can and can't do with the online tools associated with DDI and the new OGL.

From what I've seen you won't have to pay to unlock complete mage to use a feat out of the book. Rather the full description won't be accessible in the character generator. You'll just have to look in the book, and manually adjust other parts of the character sheet as required. As for minis, they'll have generic markers, just like my home games! (I've only purchased one booster pack of minis. The rest of them are hand-me-down warhammer minis, pente stones, and bottle caps.)

The way I understand the description of the new OGL it just means that people will have to buy the core books to play 4E with FG. I'm sure the character sheet will be freely distributable, or at least 3rd party publishers will be able to make their own. Perhaps much of the built in automation (such as when you put in an ability score, the modifier is automatically calculated) will be off limits, but individual users of FG can cope with this in many ways.

Personally I'm not sure if I'll be subscribing to DDI. I've never subscribed to Dungeon or Dragon, and I don't buy minis (though I have been buying their tile sets). However, the character generator and DM kit sound interesting... *shrug*

[kalmarjan]

D&D Insider – DRM, Downloadable vs. view online. "We are still investigating, digital issues will be usable without being connected. Books – You will need to be logged in to use them. Still working out how to make this work for you and for us."

The nominal fee to access the electronic version of a book you already own on D&D Insider will be in the region of $1-$2.

We already have mentioned that owning the E-version of a published book will allow to see the details of the book content within the D&DI applications, if you are a D&DI subscriber.

Now you will still be able to build a character using features from a published book even if you do not own the E-Version of that published book. You will not be able to see the detailed descriptions of the resources you have used from that published book, though.

You will be able to use the published material to create your character from the character sheet application regardless of your ownership of any particular E-Book.

If you are a D&DI subscriber, the ownership of an E-book allows you to consult the details of a feat (for example) from your computer screen. Without this E-Book, you will simply know the name of the feat and will have to use the physical book to see what this feat does. You can use this feat when creating your character from the character sheet application, even if you do not own the E-book where that feat was published.

So, what this all boils down to is that yes, you could use the feat for example, you just would not know what it would do, you would have to make all adjustments yourself, making the point of having an automated character/tabletop useless.

Also, paying another 1$ to 2$ per book may seem like a nominal fee, but if history shows us what will happen, that could run anywhere to an extra 10$ and upwards for the serious gamer. Gouge anyone? At least with FG, you pay once, maybe have to buy a ruleset... but that is it.

Is anyone out there in marketing land paying attention to the last statement? I am handing you a catch line for the marketing of FG for FREE.

Sandeman

[joshuha]

Yeah thats why I said reference to the feat. I know they will allow a text description where you can just type it in but if you want a referenced link to the description you will have have to have paid to unlock the book in DDI.

Like I said, it could all change by the time it goes live but not being able to import outside tilesets and what not seems like a deal breaker to me.

[richvalle]

So, what this all boils down to is that yes, you could use the feat for example, you just would not know what it would do, you would have to make all adjustments yourself, making the point of having an automated character/tabletop useless.
Sandeman

Well, lets be fair. FG is pretty much in the same boat. You can add whatever feat you want (to the base D20 ruleset) and nothing will change on your character sheet.

rv

[richvalle]

As for 4E and Fantasy Grounds, I don't have any official word yet -- but if you ask me it isn't looking very good for something like a 4E SRD. The problem is that this new OGL is not a document, but a reference guide for the PHB; which to me means those rules cannot be duplicated verbatim and could only used to translate gaming material (stats, skills, rules, etc) into published material where applicable. On the other hand I don't believe they are going to let you "translate" the rules into another form of written text either, as that is a derivative of the copyrighted work. However, they might let you do an adventure that references 4E material, you just would not be able to have the 4E/OGL-ish rules "built" into the interface. Say if we converted a 4E Goodman Games adventure to Fantasy Grounds, it just would not be associated with module information in the way we do it with d20. The only way you're going to be able to reference 4E rules directly online it sounds is if you're subscribed to DDI.

This is conjecture on my part at the moment, I'm hoping to find out more soon. Justing sharing my current thoughts for those who have been asking.

Honestly, we never use the built in rules for D20 currently in FG. Though we DO use the D20srd.org one a lot.

The real question is, I think, will FG (and others) be able to create something that will be USEABLE with 4.0. Can they create a version of FG that has a 4.0 compatable characters sheet without the rules?

Yes, this will remove some of the functionality of being able to drag and drop spells to the character sheet, but as long as we could use it to play it would be a viable option and one I would take before going to DDI.

rv