BRP's Hit Locations & Other SRDs

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

 Both can be used as they are, or combined with other ORC licensed systems.

That's kinda what the OP was hoping for. This all started because the OP wanted to mix 'n match different open content from different Open sources under different open licenses. Now in my opinion any "open content" would be fair game tobe used however someone wanted, regardless of the source or licence because that is what "open content" means. But apparently you are the only one who is treating it that way. Everyone else is all concerned and uncertain as to what someone can do with supposedly open content. 

 

BTW, I have to say that I admire the fact that you actually mean it when you say open content.

 

 

[Atgxtg]

14 hours ago, g33k said:

It will let individual world-builder creatives -- those who don't want to grind through the mathy labor of designing mechanics -- adopt any of several ORC-licensed RPG's.

Apparently any ONE of several ORC licenses. It seems that mutli-system supplements are not an option, Design Mechanism excepted.

14 hours ago, g33k said:

They can select a "big" publisher/game (such as Paizo/Pathfinder) in hopes of coat-tailing to extra success.  Or they can pick mechanics they feel are specially suitable to their game (it looks like there will be a *LOT* of ORC-licensed RPGs out there).

There were a lot of OGL licensed games too, but the big games got most of the 3rd party support and the smaller RPGs became more marginalized than before OGL It didn't really matter. At the end of the day what happened with OGL was that a lot of companies dipped thier toes into D&D stuff because D&D had a larger marketshare and one D&D supplement could make more money than several non-D&D supplements.

AEG switched to making L5R supplements with rules for both D&D and L5R becuase the profits from one D&D book could support their whole L5R line. 

Most 3rd parties are going to follow the money, it's just good business, and so they will produce much more content for the big games and not so much for the smaller ones. So if the end of the day open licenses mostly help the big games stay dominant.  

14 hours ago, g33k said:

I think Chaosium is hoping to get some extra attention and dev-work with their "first mover advantage."

Yes, but I'm not sure they will get all that much out of it. Yes, they will pick up some disgruntled D&Ders who have had it with WotC, but we can expect the majority of angry D&Ders to switch to Pathfinder rather than BRP, since Pathfinder is more like D&D. That or they will just go back to D&D when things die down. I think it mostly depends on if ORC gets up and running before the current situation with D&D dies down, and whatever WotC does to try and win back or further alienate their customers.  

[g33k]

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Apparently any ONE of several ORC licenses. It seems that mutli-system supplements are not an option, Design Mechanism excepted.

No, there is only one ORC license (the official license will be held at the US Library of Congress (once the wheels of gov't finish their grinding), though I expect most ORC-license publishers will mirror a copy on their own site).

Everyone publishing under that license is offering the same terms to everyone who uses the ORC license.  There is (as best I can tell) absolutely *no* clause in the ORC license that prevents you from doing a mashup of multiple ORC-licensed games (tho I think BRP is the only ORC-license game that's out, as yet).

However, the OGL has an explicit clause disallowing any other license terms to be applied, making it incompatible with the ORC license.

One could (hypothetically) do a careful differentiation of ORC and OGL content, separately-license different parts of the book.  This would be akin to the way OGL books had non-OGL "product identity" bits (so that, for example, key figures like Elminster & places like Neverwinter are not included under the OGL).  Hypothetically:  the ORC is so new, nobody has had a chance to do this.

Edited August 2, 2023 by g33k

[g33k]

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

...

There were a lot of OGL licensed games too, but the big games got most of the 3rd party support and the smaller RPGs became more marginalized than before OGL It didn't really matter. At the end of the day what happened with OGL was that a lot of companies dipped thier toes into D&D stuff because D&D had a larger marketshare and one D&D supplement could make more money than several non-D&D supplements.

Honestly, D&D was *always* the market-leader, possibly barring a brief bobble around 4e vs PF1 (but solid sales info isn't really available to make that call definitively).  Other than Paizo creating PF when WotC moved to 4e, I don't think the OGL made a big difference in the market.

But IIRC WotC was always up-front about expecting the OGL to drive sales of their core products.

The PHB was WotC's RPG cash cow, the DMG & sundry monster-manuals distinct also-ran's.  Their hope for modules & campaigns was to hit break-even, but they didn't really have great expectations -- adventures amounted to promotional materials that would drive PHB sales.  The OGL existed (as a business-proposition, to sell to the suits & beancounters at Hasbro) to out-source the production of those promotional materials & grow their PHB market.

Smaller businesses (with less overhead) could actually make money on titles that WotC could not.  But it led to a glut of mediocre d20 / D&D3.x products.
 

Edited August 2, 2023 by g33k

[g33k]

8 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

...  

Yes, but I'm not sure they will get all that much out of it. Yes, they will pick up some disgruntled D&Ders who have had it with WotC, but we can expect the majority of angry D&Ders to switch to Pathfinder rather than BRP, since Pathfinder is more like D&D. That or they will just go back to D&D when things die down. I think it mostly depends on if ORC gets up and running before the current situation with D&D dies down, and whatever WotC does to try and win back or further alienate their customers.  

Only time will tell, I think.

But the ORC  is  up & running -- final version of the license has dropped (and is being filed with LoC).

BRP:UGE is on the market, years before any of us (even Chaosium) had thought it might be, and other publishers are following suit, with greater or lesser speed.

At the very least, we've got that update to the BGB!

But of course there will be other ORC-licensed RPG's coming.  PF at least, but I expect *lots.*

Remember:  it's the creators who are feeling especially-betrayed by WotC; the writers and publishers.  For many, this is their livelihood... and that makes the betrayal personal.  Some of the fans may well (certainly will) go back to D&D, but a higher proportion of the creators are likely to stay the ORC course, at least for a while.

Edited August 2, 2023 by g33k

[Atgxtg]

38 minutes ago, g33k said:

Only time will tell, I think.

Yup. It might pan out. 

38 minutes ago, g33k said:

But the ORC  is  up & running -- final version of the license has dropped (and is being filed with LoC).

BRP:UGE is on the market, years before any of us (even Chaosium) had thought it might be, and other publishers are following suit, with greater or lesser speed.

Yes, but much of that was already out there. The UGE isn't all that different from the older BGB which had been so successful that Chasoium stopped supporting it in favor of setting specific RPGs. 

38 minutes ago, g33k said:

At the very least, we've got that update to the BGB!

But of course there will be other ORC-licensed RPG's coming.  PF at least, but I expect *lots.*

But again there were lots of RPGs under OGL, most of which didn't really benefit much from it. I mean if someone wanbts to publish something and doesn't care too much about the game system, it makes sense to go with a popular game system that will sell lots of copies and make lots of money rather that an obscure game that won't sell many copies.

 

38 minutes ago, g33k said:

Remember:  it's the creators who are feeling especially-betrayed by WotC; the writers and publishers.  For many, this is their livelihood... and that makes the betrayal personal.  Some of the fans may well (certainly will) go back to D&D, but a higher proportion of the creators are likely to stay the ORC course, at least for a while.

Yes, but these are mostly the same people who felt betrayed by D&D 4E and then jumped right on board with 5E. I suspect that if WotC backtracks a bit ( they already have) a lot of those creators will forgive & forget and jump right back onto the band wagon. D&D still has around 50% of the market, and that makes is much more profitable for third parties. 

I'd like to see ORC shake things up, and maybe it will, but I suspect that even if it does, it will mostly benefit Pathfinder. 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

No, there is only one ORC license (the official license will be held at the US Library of Congress (once the wheels of gov't finish their grinding), though I expect most ORC-license publishers will mirror a copy on their own site).

Sorry my bad. I meant several licensed product lines. Not that each ORC book had it's own licence. 

 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

However, the OGL has an explicit clause disallowing any other license terms to be applied, making it incompatible with the ORC license.

Ah, that would seem to kill the OP's original goal.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

One could (hypothetically) do a careful differentiation of ORC and OGL content, separately-license different parts of the book.  This would be akin to the way OGL books had non-OGL "product identity" bits (so that, for example, key figures like Elminster & places like Neverwinter are not included under the OGL).  Hypothetically:  the ORC is so new, nobody has had a chance to do this.

Yeah, I mentioned earlier that as far as the BGB goes, there isn't much in the old BGB that isn't in UGE, and what isn't could be recreated as long as it wasn't a direct copy. For instance, hit locations are not exclusive to the BGB. Lots of people have right legs. 

 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Honestly, D&D was *always* the market-leader, possibly barring a brief bobble around 4e vs PF1 (but solid sales info isn't really available to make that call definitively).  Other than Paizo creating PF when WotC moved to 4e, I don't think the OGL made a big difference in the market.

It did, but earlier on. AD&D sales started to fall off in 1984, and by 1989 2E was selling less that half as many copies as what was sold during the peak years. What OGL did was help boost 3E because it meant that 3rd parties would produce supplements that supported 3E rather than compete with it. 

4E was an attempt to lock the IP back down, and what lead to Pathfinder. 5E opened things back up again to stave off the Pathfinder threat, and "the One" is another attempt to lock it all down again.  

1 hour ago, g33k said:

But IIRC WotC was always up-front about expecting the OGL to drive sales of their core products.

Yes, the basic strategy is simple and obvious. By opening up the licence they could sell more core books, and get third parties to help support D&D rather than compete with it. What they didn't foresee was that some 3rd parties could grow to the point of potentially outselling WotC. 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

The PHB was WotC's RPG cash cow, the DMG & sundry monster-manuals distinct also-ran's.  Their hope for modules & campaigns was to hit break-even, but they didn't really have great expectations -- adventures amounted to promotional materials that would drive PHB sales.  The OGL existed (as a business-proposition, to sell to the suits & beancounters at Hasbro) to out-source the production of those promotional materials & grow their PHB market.

Yeah, the idea was that no matter who's supplements people bought, they would still need the core books to play. The problem was that those were "buy once" products while adventures and other supplements  are things that GMs will always be buying. 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Smaller businesses (with less overhead) could actually make money on titles that WotC could not.  But it led to a glut of mediocre d20 / D&D3.x products.
 

I think WotC expected to make the lion'share of the profit by producing the lion's share of the products. Like it was with D&D and AD&D. Back in the old days, several companies produced D&D adventures, authorized and unauthorized) but TSR sold the most and made the most. But 3rd party publishing had come a long way, and suddenly WOtC was up against companies who could produce lots of content, high quality content, or both. 

[Mugen]

5 hours ago, g33k said:

Honestly, D&D was *always* the market-leader, possibly barring a brief bobble around 4e vs PF1 (but solid sales info isn't really available to make that call definitively).  Other than Paizo creating PF when WotC moved to 4e, I don't think the OGL made a big difference in the market.

And PF is basically D&D3.6. So, the only game able to rival D&D was just another D&D 🙂

Another goal of the OGL was to protect 3e from being discontinued by WotC, and it was successful at that time.

[NickMiddleton]

2 hours ago, Mugen said:

And PF is basically D&D3.6. So, the only game able to rival D&D was just another D&D 🙂

Another goal of the OGL was to protect 3e from being discontinued by WotC, and it was successful at that time.

Also, the 5.1 SRD has been released under Creative Commons (CC-BY-4.0), in addition to WotC walking back the proposed changes / revisions to the OGL.

[LivingTriskele]

Sadly, since the vast majority of this project is based on OGL rules (specifically the d20HeroSRD), it probably makes the most sense to either avoid or rewrite the BRP aspects I’d hoped to incorporate.

That said, I can see applying the basic approach I’m using for this project to an entirely BRP/ORC friendly set of rules as well (which, the more I think about it, is probably what I’m going to end up doing).

[Stan Shinn]

My understanding is that so long as you are clear on what license covers what, you can mix many of the open licenses, e.g. "Chapter One is BRUGE ORC licensed, and Chapter Two is OGL open content." But I am not an attorney 🙂

[g33k]

On 8/2/2023 at 8:01 AM, LivingTriskele said:

Sadly, since the vast majority of this project is based on OGL rules (specifically the d20HeroSRD), it probably makes the most sense to either avoid or rewrite the BRP aspects I’d hoped to incorporate.

That said, I can see applying the basic approach I’m using for this project to an entirely BRP/ORC friendly set of rules as well (which, the more I think about it, is probably what I’m going to end up doing).

d20heroSRD is Mutants&Masterminds -- Green Ronin.

Green Ronin was IIRC right there alongside Chaosium in the original wave of "Part of the ORC Alliance" announcement; and they long-since offered a free "Powered by M&M" license, so I suspect the ORC will be coming to M&M...

It may take a little while for the licenses to shake down (Paizo to release an OGL-free version of PF under the ORC, for Green Ronin in turn to use as their basis for an ORC-based M&M).

Or it may not -- Green Ronin has stated that M&M3 is almost entirely-free of any language derived from prior OGL licensed SRDs, so it would seem relatively trivial to just make the move unilaterally.

I would go to Green Ronin, and ask explicitly about an ORC-licensed version of M&M... However, it may be something they're still figuring out, and not ready to talk about:  my Google-fu didn't turn up any firm info (unlike with (for example) Paizo & Chaosium.

[LivingTriskele]

Thank you! This is hopeful and helpful. I've meaning to reach out Green Ronin, and actually Steve Kenson himself.