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Following the discussion via the button, where did Imaro ask if something was childish? I just cannot seem to find it?
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Originally Posted by Morrus
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Originally Posted by catsclaw227
This.
Why is it that some people believe that because WOTC decided to close up their product, and provide a different 3PP use license, that WOTC has violated their rights?
It's simply human nature. Those used to getting something for free develop a sense of entitlement to that thing, and erroneously equate the cessation of that free supply to actual loss; and further develop the belief that someone NOT giving them something for free is therefore in the wrong.
A behavioural trait often displayed by children; most people grow out of it by the time they reach adulthood, but some never shake it.
This is where I see the "childish" line begin....
Last edited by justanobody; 1st December 2008 at 02:17 AM..
I repeat - let's keep the thread on track please, people. It's about a deadline to WotC, not about whether Imaro thinks I think he's childish. Let's drop that line of conversation, please. It's just fanning the flames of a burgeoning argument.
Well I likewise am offended by the comment and it was brought up in context of the thread topic and plays an important role in it when it is said that anyone wanting to give WotC a deadline is considred to be childish.
So I think it is very on topic, personally. Is this also how WotC and/or ENW Publishing views customers that disagree with them, as childish?
If that is the case then maybe a deadline for the GSL is not the thing, but complete stopping buying and using all products and letting consumers know this is how a company feels about them is the best course of action, so rescend my agreement that a deadline criteria is important as something else has come up that takes a higher priority of importance.
Well I likewise am offended by the comment and it was brought up in context of the thread topic and plays an important role in it when it is said that anyone wanting to give WotC a deadline is considred to be childish.
So I think it is very on topic, personally. Is this also how WotC and/or ENW Publishing views customers that disagree with them, as childish?
If you continue to bring it up, you will be asked to leave the thread. We are NOT turning this thread into an argument. I've now said so three times; this will be the last time. I hope I have made myself clear. This goes for everyone.
If you have any further questions about it, feel free to email me. But this thread will return to the original topic.
1. Rant and rave like an idiot, but knowing all the while that nothing will really come of it, AND BE MISERABLE.
Well, except for the fact that we know that if enough people rant and rave about something, change usually will occur. They can either literally rant and rave about it, or vote with their dollars. This does occassionally happen and companies back down and try a different tactic - the New Coke debacle is a good case in point. TV shows have been saved by the same sort of thing. Products have ceased production or changed because enough people ranted and raved. The tactic, really, isn't without merit.
However ....
The anger you can see in a lot of the posts comes from the realization - even if they won't admit it - that there are not enough people displeased with the way things have gone.
The anger you can see in a lot of the posts comes from the realization - even if they won't admit it - that there are not enough people displeased with the way things have gone.
I think that sums it up quite nicely.
I'd prefer if WotC had the "final" GSL ready way back before August, when they originally planned on releasing it to interested publishers. If they had, more publishers might have jumped on the 4e wagon and we'd have more products available to us right now by some of our favorite companies. I'm disapointed that it did not happen . . . but I don't feel the rage that some seem to here. I still think WotC is overall a pretty solid company with some solid individuals working for them putting out overall solid products I like to spend my money on. They seriously miscalculated with the release of the GSL, and also the Digital Initiative. It happens.
I think trying to impose some sort of deadline to the company with all the power (the D&D IP) is wrong-headed, unnecessarily vindictive, foolish, and would be doomed to have no positive effect. It's their IP, they don't have to share at all, but they do because they feel it strengthens the hobby as a whole which in turn benefits them.
__________________ Brian Zuber
Proud Member of ENWorld since 2000 (under several lost screen names). Gaming since the mid-80s!
Favorite Settings: Love all of the official settings, Mystara is my nostalgia fave! Trying to create a homebrew that blends the best elements of the various settings. Favorite Edition: Can't decide between 3rd Edition and 4th Edition, like them both!
I dont know who wrote it, nor do I care; and I don't agree with it; and that, unless that quote is taken out of context, the author does not understand what "freedom of speech" means. If they want to come and say it here, I'll happily say so. I don't associate ethics with free RPG content.
If you have an opinion, feel free to offer it here. I'm not really interested in the opinion of some random person who is not involved in this conversation, just the opinions of those who are here and involved in the conversation.
So my point is this: You may not associate ethics with free RPG content. But the author of the OGL did; the head of WOTC did so at the time of the OGL's release; and it was included as part of the official "Definitions" of Open Gaming.
So at the very least you've got to admit that there's a real difference of philosophy around the issue, and while calling it "childish" may be useful for your business case at the moment, it isn't really intellectually rigorous.
__________________ ADVANCED DUNGEONS &DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity. This is not to say that where it does not interfere with the flow of the game that the highest degree of realism hasn‘t been attempted, but neither is a serious approach to play discouraged. (1E DMG p. 9)
I'm with those who don't really understand all the WoTC-directed hostility.
The GSL has two main components: the bit that says that you may publish a product that uses the D&D trademark, and that such a product may refer to but not substantially reproduce or alter the text in the 4e rulebooks; and the bit that say that, if you do this, you have to drop publication of similar products that contain content derived from the SRD.
The first bit is a pretty functional replication of the OGL for those publishers who wish to provide supplementary material for D&D (leaving aside details like the stat-block problem - I assume that this is the sort of thing the revision is intended to address). It is a functional departure from the OGL for those who want to exploit the market's familiarity with the D&D rules (as incorporated into the SRD) in order to produce RPG material that is not supplementary to D&D. I can see why WoTC have decided to withdraw support for this second sort of endeavour. They have decided that Dancey was wrong in thinking (i) that d20 will conquer the gaming world, and (ii) that this will always be to the financial benefit of WoTC. That's not an absurd conclusion to reach after nearly a decade of experience with the OGL.
The second bit is an attempt to force publishers to choose between supporting 3E or non-D&D RPGs, or supporting 4e (at least on a per-product line basis). By the standards of a commercial licencing agreement that seems only very moderately aggressive to me, but then I'm not involved in the entertainment industry, so that is a purely outsider's perspective.
Those who are defending WoTC by appealing to a libertarian theory of the contract I think are going to far - even those with a much more norm-governed notion of the contract (eg like Xechnao, I think, who seems to reflect something closer to the European notion of the contract) can still agree that it is entirely WoTC's prerogative to decide on what terms it wishes to licence D&D IP to other commercial entities. This is not a case of anti-competitive or otherwise anti-social behaviour, as far as I can tell. No one is being prohibited from participating in the RPG market.
Those who think that WoTC has a moral duty to make the text of the 4e rulebooks reproduceable by other for free I think ought to explain why the 4e rulebooks are different in this respect from every other RPG ever published, or indeed from every other text ever published. Why is WoTC uniquely prohibited from enjoying the benefits that IP law confers on publishers? Why is WoTC uniquely precluded from determining the terms on which it licences the reproduction by others of its text or trademarks?
So my point is this: You may not associate ethics with free RPG content. But the author of the OGL did; the head of WOTC did so at the time of the OGL's release; and it was included as part of the official "Definitions" of Open Gaming.
So at the very least you've got to admit that there's a real difference of philosophy around the issue, and while calling it "childish" may be useful for your business case at the moment, it isn't really intellectually rigorous.
I believe that A) someone might support open gaming for ethical reasons. I also believe that B) no matter how much someone enjoys somebody else's support of open gaming, it is unreasonable to assume that this support must continue forever. I don't think that beliefs A and B are inconsistent. Statement B certainly doesn't imply (in any intellectually rigorous way) that I believe that ethical motivations for open gaming are unreasonable.
So my point is this: You may not associate ethics with free RPG content. But the author of the OGL did; the head of WOTC did so at the time of the OGL's release; and it was included as part of the official "Definitions" of Open Gaming.
I don't see Ryan's name on that page anywhere. Not that I'm saying he didn't write it (I have no way of knowing just looking at it), but I don't see anything saying he did.
I still disagree with it.
[Edit - ah, I see his name's in the sidebar. I still disagree with him.]
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So at the very least you've got to admit that there's a real difference of philosophy around the issue, and while calling it "childish" may be useful for your business case at the moment, it isn't really intellectually rigorous.
You're misrepresenting my position. I stand by my stated opinion.
I don't know what you imagine my "business case" may be, but I would benefit from a revised GSL, which is contrary to my personal opinion on the moral aspects I've debated in this thread. If I'm making a business case, I'm doing a very poor job of it by advocating for the other side!
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Last edited by Morrus; 1st December 2008 at 02:08 PM..
All this ranting against WotC would make more sense if there wasn't a GSL, but there is.
Unless you're a publisher or at the very least a freelancer - why care? There is a ton of third party 4E stuff coming out, so as a gamer/consumer that need is filled. There is a functional GSL, and anyone who wants to take the publishing plunge can do so - companies like Necromancer, who wish to wait and see what the revised GSL looks like, can do so as well.
As a freelancer, there are some aspects of the original OGL/SRD that I disliked, and in no way agreed with, such as the exclusion of several classic spells and monsters from the SRD. As most of my stuff is heavily old-school influenced, these restrictions seemed unfairly arbitrary to me, but they are WotC's property, and they can do what they want with them.
Its been my unfortunate opinion so far that many folks getting upset about "where's the GSL" have no business stake in the matter, little or no knowledge of the legalities involved, and are discounting the GSL as-is based on the opinion of a couple of extremely "high-IP" publishers like Paizo and Green Ronin, rather than forming their own educated opinion.
Seldom do I see any acknowledgement of the problems the original OGL had, and created for WotC. The simple fact is that some publishers took far greater liberties with Ryan Dancy's good intentions than WotC could ignore, and it had to be addressed.
I remain hopeful that the revised GSL will be a better fit for IP-heavy publishers, but I, for one, don't see the need to have some sort of boycott or ultimatum, that would seem to be a waste of time at best, and hurtful to the intended cause at worst.
__________________ "There are few problems a well-placed fireball cannot solve. Now, tell us more about this... orphanage?" - Balfour Grimstaff
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One thing I hate about the "Is there an Ethical Reason..." statement is that it can be misconstrued as implying those that don't want to give away their content are unethical, and thus the OGL concept is the only moral way you should license a game, a concept I find disturbing.
As much as I would like to add something concrete to this thread, anything that I have to say about this issue has already been addressed at some point. So I would like to take this opportunity to state how much joy I got reading this whole discussion, just to see some of the crazy opinions that are floating out there, and the justification some people will use to attempt to make this valid. Who am I talking about? Who cares, that's irrelevant.
Eh, I think the ship has sailed on having a usable GSL.
It's an undeniable fact that the current one is totally undesirable; every company with more than one employee and any IP worth protecting has eschewed it. So far it's just new solo folks with nothing to lose and extremely limited experiments (Wraith Recon, Apelords) by established companies. Ronin, Paizo, Necromancer, Troll Lord, Kenzer, Postmortem, Wolfgang Baur, Monte Cook, Sean K. Reynolds, Deep7, Highmoon, and random other guys - all quite reputable companies and noted RPG designers - have decided not to bother with the GSL. Comments like "the only people that don't like the GSL are people with no stake/knowledge" are patently false.
Really it's too late. All these guys had to plan out a path for their products when all this came up. And they correctly saw that WotC is not going to address this issue in good faith. How many times have they promised something about the GSL but "whoops, it just slipped through the cracks again?" That's not someone you enter into a business relationship with.
And a lot of the reason to go along has faded. 4e hasn't been performing to expectation (at least people like Matt Sprange of Mongoose and other people that might know say so). Wizards just laid off more of their staff, including 4e designers and people working on the failed digital initiative. This isn't the D&D of 3e, which was reinvigorating the industry and clearly something to align with. With a sufficiently nonpredatory GSL you might see more experiments, but I wouldn't be too sure they'd be found compelling by other folks outside the PDF-only crowd.
4e hasn't been performing to expectation (at least people like Matt Sprange of Mongoose and other people that might know say so).
How would Mr. Sprange know? Unless by "4E" you mean "Mongoose's 4E products".
And who are the others you refer to and where did they say what?
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Originally Posted by mxyzplk
Wizards just laid off more of their staff, including 4e designers and people working on the failed digital initiative. This isn't the D&D of 3e, which was reinvigorating the industry and clearly something to align with.
In the thread about the recent layoffs, we are reminded of the layoffs that followed the releases of 3.0 and 3.5.
__________________ Iain Fyffe
Original member of the Rouseketeers!
I have played 4E. And just like all other editions of D&D, it is awesome!
no one quotes me in sigs - Crothian
For some reason, this doesn't fill me with rage. I must be interwebbing wrong. - Cadfan
It looks like a couple of their products are GSL (Forgotten Heroes: Fang, Fist, and Song is the only one I can find for sure) but others are not (the DCCs and other adventures just say "for 4e" and don't use any of the GSL trappings).
How would Mr. Sprange know? Unless by "4E" you mean "Mongoose's 4E products".
And who are the others you refer to and where did they say what?
In the thread about the recent layoffs, we are reminded of the layoffs that followed the releases of 3.0 and 3.5.
Though the point of Sprange's post was about Mongoose's plans and not dissing 4e, it's clear from the context he is not talking about Mongoose's 4e products but the line in general, and he'd know somewhat because industry leaders talk. Early in the post he talks about industry mailing list discussions about what companies are top tier and other such businessy stuff. So maybe he's "confused" but I'd say he has a better chance at insight here than random messageboard humanoids.
And sure, there have been layoffs at Wizards before. But you have to look at what areas. The DI hasn't been delivered yet, and it's getting cuts. It's one thing to cut a surplus of editors or whatnot after the new edition's done and out, it's another to cut areas that allegedly are still working hard to finish their part.
Anyone can try to interpret all these things as "maybe they're not bad..." But the common sense interpretation is that yeah - they're bad.
It looks like a couple of their products are GSL (Forgotten Heroes: Fang, Fist, and Song is the only one I can find for sure) but others are not (the DCCs and other adventures just say "for 4e" and don't use any of the GSL trappings).
So how does this tie in to your claim that "It's an undeniable fact that the current [GSL] is totally undesirable" (emphasis added)?
Especially when you already mentioned that Mongoose has a couple of GSL products as well?
__________________ Iain Fyffe
Original member of the Rouseketeers!
I have played 4E. And just like all other editions of D&D, it is awesome!
no one quotes me in sigs - Crothian
For some reason, this doesn't fill me with rage. I must be interwebbing wrong. - Cadfan
button, where did Imaro ask if something was childish? I just cannot seem to find it?
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