Audio EXP: #181 – Burning Bridges

Welcome home.

This is Audio EXP for the 21st of January, 2023, and the episode title is “Burning Bridges”.

[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #181]

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Catilus is in the Spotlight this month, as voted for by Patreons.

Did you know the illustrator and designer Catilus is also a trained vet?

That explains the talent for charming animals and game supplements like Cute Creatures Compendium.

I asked Catilus whether RPGs treated animals well, citing all those spells which summon up wolves, use them as attack fodder and have them fight to the death before whatever happens to the animal happens to the animal.

Catilus had a strong answer; keep fantasy from reality.

That wasn’t the only attempt at a weighty question in our chat, and the interview is up on Geek Native. You can find directions to that from the transcript linked to in the show notes.

For another week, absolutely impossible to hide from, the Open Game License dominated the headlines. Last week I said that Wizards might have used language around winning and losing to make it look like the fight had been settled. I noted that they would still deauthorise the OGL but left the industry on course for a head-to-head unless someone backed down.

Well, Wizards backed a bit more down, and things are looking brighter now, but I think my original assessment still stands.

Wizards are trying to draw a line under the drama. They’ve now offered a fairly accommodating Creative Commons license; for some, it’s justifiably still not generous enough. Importantly, they’ll still deauthorise the OGL.

I’ve emailed Paizo, though they’ve had scant time to reply, to see whether they will stick by their preparedness to go to court to stop the deauthorisation of the OGL or whether the protections around the old OGL and the offer of a new Creative Commons is enough.

The title of this podcast is “Burning Bridges” because my mind is racing ahead to the What’s Next stage of the tussle. It feels to me that bridges are being burnt, and I wonder who is cutting who off.

Will indie publishers be better off outside Wizards of the Coasst’ ecosystem? Will a wave of competing systems help or hinder the marketplace? Are newcomers to the hobby going to find it easier or more challenging without a common game system to learn?

If Wizards of the Coast wanted to change the OGL to shake off what they saw as challenger companies standing on their coattails, have they, despite all the heat, actually, managed to do that?

A lot, I think, depends on how the buyers in the market react. If people who said they’ll never play 5e again stick to their guns and adopt new systems, then Wizards of the Coast have done long-term damage to themselves. If gamers forget this month and go back to D&D, yet third-party publishers find bridges have been burnt between them and Wizards of the Coast, then the third-party publishers will have lost out.

We have some early research to look at, and one survey found that more than one in ten D&D players have quit for good.

The survey from FandomSpot talks about D&D and not 5e, so there’s some wriggle room, but it says that this 12% will put away their current D&D books and never use them again.

A more significant number, 47% of gamers in the 4,000-strong survey, have said they’ll never spend money on D&D again. That means Wizards of the Coast products, but it’s unclear whether that also means third-party 5e products or DMsGuild licensed downloads for which WotC gets a cut.

There are some middle-ground options. There’s a new Union of indie devs in Europe, and I think that’s a quirky title. WotC doesn’t really employ them, but I get what they mean – cooperation. Let’s hope it doesn’t become a cartel.

One of the founders is the French studio Agate, which has a series of great tabletop RPGs. Their 5e game is Fateforge, a high fantasy familiar enough to suit 5e yet different enough to feel interesting.

Studio Agate has made the whole of the core Fateforge a Pay What You Want on DriveThruRPG. In other words, they’ve put the commercial power firmly in the hands of their community and buyers. It’s a bold move.

I also think it’s interesting stepping into the shoes of Free League Publishing right now. They’ve some big franchises to manage with titles like Lord of the Rings, Alien and Blade Runner. Pats on the back for those games not been connected to 5e, I guess but has the OGL fight changed the sort of details that IP owners look at?

Free League have announced two different OGLs of their own. The first is a reworking of the Year Zero Engine OGL, letting people use their game engine to make new RPGs.

The second is for Dragonbane and only allows third-party publishers to create supplements for Dragonbane.

It makes sense. It makes so much sense that it’s easy to overlook the difference. There’s a gulf between a community of creators making content that makes your game more tempting by being well-supported with supplements and empowering rivals to use your system that makes your core rules redundant.

Dragonbane is the first one. Any content created by its license will support Dragonbane. The Year Zero OGL is the second, as it’s possible people will make Year Zero RPGs which means gamers have alternatives to Blade Runner, The Walking Dead, Mutant Year Zero or Tales from the Loop to buy.

There’s also ORC. That open license is being funded but not controlled by Paizo. We’re seeing early adopters and one such example is Project Phoenix. That’s on DriveThruRPG already, free to download, incomplete, but soliciting feedback and developer support. At the helm is ex-WotC designer Darrin Drader.

Or if all that’s a faff and you just want to play games that care less about systems and more about settings, then I suspect you’re not alone. I think we’ll see more.

On DriveThruRPG, there’s a free-to-download new edition of Denizen! That suits OSR-style engines, but especially Troika!

That’s precisely the sort of game that puts the focus on a setting and lets you pick a game engine to power it.

And there’s technology. The OGL drama might also see less of a hardwired connection between tech systems and game systems. I support Wizards’ goal, whether true and honest or not, to shrug off NFT marketplaces that tried to tap into D&D.

However, systems like Infinite Realms do not. Infinite Realms, which Kickstarted, is software to turn your digital battle maps into something you can use a projector or a flat-screen TV as a tabletop to turn your physical tabletop into a gaming map. It’s system neutral.

The blog, links in the usual place, has an Infinite Realms coupon code discount for listeners.

The word counter on my draft says there are about 10 minutes of talking time on this podcast, half that if you’re just reading the transcript. We’ll see, but that’s about me done, although I’ve two bundles to mention before I go.

First, I’ll note that I’m happy to wrap here as in a few hours, I head off to see the feature-length That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime anime in my local cinema. That’s another anime hitting the big screen. Though I’ve rarely been in a packed show, there’s a trend. I hope it continues, and I hope the anime boom stays healthy.

Have you seen any anime in the theatre?

The first of those two bundles is for the two-player Beowulf RPG. One DM and one player, with rules for followers and supporter NPCs helping the single hero. Yeah, like, Beowulf.

The other, surprising no one but perhaps delighting many, is a Bundle of Holding offer called Alternatives to D&D.

So, let’s finish there; enjoy your week and keep safe.