> Brad: Thank you for your lengthy response. I had written a point by point
> response but I think I'll just summarize it. Here's the very very short
> version: I think 'open gaming's big benefits would be that everyone gets a
> low cost, high-quality gaming system. WOTC wants to make monopoly profits
> from the sale of a high-cost, low(er)-quality gaming system. One of us has
> to be wrong.
"High Cost"?
$20 for a fat, hardbound, full-color interior Player's Handbook?
We at Atlas Games set $20 as our standard reasonable price for a 128-page
book, with a color cover and black-ink-only interior. This is the economic
reality of printing and production at our scale instead of WotC's.
By "low cost" I can only assume you mean "handed out for free"?
But--with the D20 SRD, that *is* what WotC is doing as well.
Speaking as a player of games, I'll happily shell out the $20 for a color
rulebook, even if I can get its contents free online. Much better to have
in my hands when actually playing.
> ...I also never would have thought that their business goal was
> to sell more PHBs.
Well, like Ryan said, core rulebooks are the high-margin items. Get someone
else to do the supplements (and thus keep people involved and buying more
core rulebooks), and you're on easy street.
> As far as the D20SRD. I'll be very surprised if D20SRD under the OGL turns
> out to be very useful.
Isn't it available now on the open gaming website? Have you looked at it?
> I can use D20SRD to actually replicate PHB and
> DMG and MM and then distribute it as "Alex's Fantasy Game" for half the
> price of those books (or for free), the way Red Hat can distribute LINUX,
> then I'll be really impressed. I will gladly and humbly eat crow. And
after
> eating crow, I'll write "Alex's Fantasy Game" and no one will buy silly
> overpriced WOTC books when mine are just as good, are fully compatible
with
> the D&D product line, and cost less.
Go ahead and produce the Player's Handbook as "Alex's Fantasy Game" and
charge $10 for it. See how your sales are (a) without the D&D trademark and
(b) without the production values (unless you plan to lose a LOT of money),
as you'd want to keep your manufacturing cost at about $1 per book in order
to run a sane business and have the retail price be $10. I'd be *very*
interested to see if you could do that. And, really, I don't think anyone
would stop you from trying.
> BUT for the very reason that they are using 'open gaming' to sell more
> PHBs, I can't believe that they will permit this.
But...as you can see from contemplating the numbers...they don't have to
prohibit it, because it's just not a threat. Certainly it's no more a
threat than what already happened in the past, where people did thinly
veiled clones of D&D...and utterly failed to grab the market from them.
(There are exceptions in foreign translation markets, e.g., Germany and "Das
Schwarze Auge," where old-time TSR was slow to get their rules set into the
local language and thus other games were able to establish major market
share before D&D had established its first-mover advantage.)
> What I was thinking is that you make 2 products, as follows: One is your
> ruleset, which has a D20STL license and excludes the forbidden rules. The
> other product is a small pamphlet with nothing but the class/race rules
and
> the xp rules, which is a separate product with a separate OGL license. You
> then offer the mini-pamphlet for free either in a bundled package ("buy X,
> get Y free"), via a mail-in offer, in a newsletter, on your website, etc.
> That way people can buy your "D20" system rules set, and yet not have to
> buy the PHB.
Yup, you can do that, and I've heard Ryan talk about it as something that he
expects some people would do. Of course, you don't even have to do that
pamphlet -- you can just give them the Open Gaming Foundation website, where
they can get the D20 SRD, if they like. Save yourself 50 cents a copy on
making that pamphlet at Kinko's, and avoid the likely problem of violating
the D20 license by selling them as a bundle.
Ryan's point is that most people still will want to get the Player's
Handbook. Why not? It's only 20 bucks.
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John Nephew voice (651) 638-0077 fax (651) 638-0084
President, Atlas Games www.atlas-games.com
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
