Forked Thread: 4E 3rd party support VS. other games

[jephlewis]

Forked from: [4E] power card displays vs. single decks

Originally Posted by DracoSuave

And yeah, 4e's third party support < 3e, but it's still > the rest of the industry for the most part. Unless there's a bunch of third party WoD stuff I don't know about sitting on a shelf next to the Green Ronin Rolemaster expansions, not to be confused with Mongoose's The Quintessential Drifter expansion for Traveler. (Unless mongoose published Traveler, can't remember off hand)

I think you're mostly, if not completely correct here, DracoSuave. 4E seems to have a good deal of third party support, even with the GSL.
The "complete" list of announced 4e 3pp products

However, we've yet to see Necromancer games put anything out for 4E specifically due to the GSL's wording.
What is up with Necro and 4E? An Update from Orcus - General Discussion - General - Necromancer Games - Message Board - Yuku

There's a few other people who seem to have a dislike for the GSL:
How Bad Is the New Wizards D&D 4e Game System License? « Geek Related

Green ronin's licensing is free:Licensing True20 - True20 Adventure Roleplaying
Mongoose traveller's licensing is free:Mongoose Traveller Licensing Unveiled « Geek Related

Originally Posted by DracoSuave

I mean yeah, in terms of 3pp there was some great stuff--Three Days to Kill was one of my favorite adventures -ever- but I can understand them not going so open with it.

Totally agree. Regarding 3pp, there was some great stuff. There's a lot of 3pp that is very high quality IMO, and as a result of the GSL, there's good reason to believe we will have less of it.

Originally Posted by DracoSuave

Compared to their previous stance, yeah it's restricting, but compared to the rest of the industry, they're still ahead of the curve. After all, not many systems followed suit on the OGF that they'd set up -for free-. So what's the point of continuing it?

I'm not sure I agree with this. I think other games [generally speaking] basically had you pay a certain amount of money, and that's it. but with the current GSL, even though you don't have to pay money to use the license, it's more restrictive. Quite a few people were very upset with the specific wording of the GSL and it's terms and conditions.
As shown above, Green ronin's true20 has a free license, and so does Mongoose's traveller. I think there are other companies that produce non D20 games, but with an OGL.