Forum

[Darrin Drader]

Originally Posted by Alzrius

This sort of touches on why I'm a bit anxious about the new version of the GSL. If it's friendlier to third-parties, it could hurt the existing 3.5 community.

I know that sounds rather awful (and quite possibly selfish), but when the current GSL debuted, it made a lot of companies who would have produced 4E materials balk, and in some cases kept them in the 3.5 camp. Needless to say, for those of us who had no interest in switching editions, this was a great thing, as it kept some of our favorite companies producing the materials we wanted to see. However, solidarity fades away if there's a lack of opposition, and I'm worried that if the new GSL is friendlier, those companies will drop their 3.5 support for 4E. I don't want Kobold Quarterly to become a 4E publication. I don't want Paizo to let Pathfinder go in favor of a new 4E venture (though in all honesty that seems unlikely now anyway). I want third-parties to continue producing 3.5 materials, rather than 4E materials - but without a GSL that heavily penalizes them for it, they may now go ahead with the 4E plans they originally had.

Of course, I'm aware that that's a particularly negative way of looking at it. It might be that the new GSL will eliminate the "no-OGL" clause for product lines, meaning that companies might produce 3.5 AND 4E materials, which would actually help the 3.5 community more than it would have otherwise. However, the pessimist in me says that most companies don't want to put out multiple versions of products anyway, and we'll still see less 3.5 material if the GSL allows for both types of products.

I guess we'll see how it turns out.

This came up on the Paizo messageboards today, as a matter of fact.

Originally Posted by Wyrmshadows

Will a GSL that is friendly to 3pps make Paizo less likely to put resources into an OGL product like the Pathfinder RPG, the various APs and other OGL materials and instead focus on 4e if that is a viable option?

Originally Posted by Vic Wertz

We hope that it affects us by clearing up some of the uncertainty surrounding Necromancer Games.

Also

Originally Posted by Vic Wertz

No.

Keep in mind that we made the choices we made before we even saw the GSL.

In other words it doesn't sound like that's likely, even if 4E were OGL. Since the Paizo boards have been picking up about 2 noobs per day because they prefer the 3.5 rules, it's possible that Pathfinder is doing as well as they say it is, and that they're picking up a lot of business from the disaffected 3.5 players. In other words, why would they want to change?

Now if making the GSL friendlier gets Necromancer Games back to putting out new material, I think we can all agree that that's only a good thing.