D&D 4E Interesting Article on OGL and 4E

That really is a very interesting article. I am particularly surprised to hear that even those who have signed up for the GSL program haven't been given any details yet. I wonder exactly how long WotC is planning on waiting.

Yes, very interesting. Very speculative too, however close to the situation he is.

I also expect there will be differences, but I fear the changes will all be in an effort to increase WotC's monopoly rents on its IP to the harm of the larger market (including the players). Anything that harms the cycle of innovation and feedback in game theory and game design means lost opportunities for us to have really awesome games.

Naturally of course WotC going out of business because anyone can resell the whole PHB (an extreme example) also harms innovation, since they have less incentive to do all that hard design work and playtesting. So a balance must be struck. But my concern is that WotC will move along the scale further from Linux and closer to the RIAA for apparent short-term benefits to WotC but to the long-term detriment of the gaming community (including WotC too).

I hope they hired some good economists and market modelers before coming to any decisions, rather than relying on corporate's "gut instinct."

pramas said:

The thing I'm really interested to find out is whether the GSL will have a clause that forbids its use with the OGL. I think this is entirely possible. It would the mean that you couldn't take previously released OGC and use it in a book released under the GSL. A book like the already announced Tome of Horrors 4th edition would not be possible under this restriction. This would make things clean and easy for WotC, but would probably cause a lot of chaos in the world of third party publishing.

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This is a very troubling statement. Chris is developing doomsday scenarios for other companies products, without any more justification than his own rumblings. I agree it's certainly conceivable for WotC to explore this exclusion of OGL info, but I don't think it should be so aimed at Necro's leaked ideas.

Charwoman Gene said:

This is a very troubling statement. Chris is developing doomsday scenarios for other companies products, without any more justification than his own rumblings. I agree it's certainly conceivable for WotC to explore this exclusion of OGL info, but I don't think it should be so aimed at Necro's leaked ideas.

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I'm not sure I'm bothered by this. My biggest concern is that 4E 3rd party companies will just rehash a lot of what they did in 3rd edition. I want some new things to get produced for 4E!

Charwoman Gene said:

This is a very troubling statement. Chris is developing doomsday scenarios for other companies products, without any more justification than his own rumblings. I agree it's certainly conceivable for WotC to explore this exclusion of OGL info, but I don't think it should be so aimed at Necro's leaked ideas.

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I think Chris is just making speculations on his blog. I didn't read anything malicious into it.

I too am surprised that they havn't gotten the GCL (or whatever the things is called), I would have thought that WotC would have been faster on that.

Based on comments from Paizo people I do suspect that they are thinking of staying with 3.5. This depends largely on how sucessful 4e is. I hope they go to 4e, my limited knowledge of business/publishing/and demographics would think that not switching would be bad for them in the long run.

Hopefully 3rd party companies will be able to update campaign settings and splat books to 4e (Iron Kingdoms). Time will tell though.

I am ambivalent about 4e now and if Chris is right, then I will have no interest in 4e whatsoever. 3rd party publishers have IMO created some wonderful materials for D&D in 3e and 3.5e. Of course there was crap, but Paradigm Concepts' Arcanis, Fantasy Flight's Midnight and Dawnforge, Mongoose's Conan D20 (not D&D per se but damn close), Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous and various race books, etc. The market sifts out the crap on its own. Gamers don't need to be protected as if we can't make our own choices about what we will or will not buy.

I'm am writing up a setting now (my homebrew for many years) most likely as a system free setting with free add-on rules for True20 and most likely Runequest. I would like to do the same for 4e but an overly restrictive GSL will prevent that. What I dread is recreating what has been recreated very well under the OGL. I consider myself an excellent fluff writer (if I do say so myself ) but only an "ok" crunch writer. There are certain OGL mechanics that are very good as they are and I know I cannot improve upon them save as to tweak them for setting specifics. I acknowledge my limitations and am grateful to be able to fill in the cracks in my own abilities with the innovations of others.

And the bottom line for me is that I am only going to play what I can write for. Firstly, this is because I can playtest new concepts in the context of the game before releasing it and also I have no interest in supporting anything that is an attempt to turn back the clock on the cross-pollination of ideas that came with the OGL.

If the GSL is overly restrictive, I hope that Green Ronin, Mongoose, Paizo, Paradigm Concepts, etc. choose to keep with their own systems and keep the OGL alive.



Wyrmshadows

I'm not surprised by these licensing changes at all. The OGL, while great for information freedom and innovation, is not so great for profits. Like it or not, WoTC is a for-profit company. They have to pay people to produce their products, and in order to sustain their existence, they have to sell those products so they can continue paying their employees.

It amazes me that OGL has existed for as long as it has. It's far more like an open-source sofware license than something you would see from a for-profit company. I will give WoTC credit for their guts in publishing under that license, but to be realistic, it is too open.

I don't think closing things off a little will hurt innovation that much. In fact, it might spur the development of a few new game systems. Maybe even one that's better than d20. People will not stop creating content just because they can't use WoTC material. At least, the people who really just love to play RPGs won't.

Charwoman Gene said:

This is a very troubling statement. Chris is developing doomsday scenarios for other companies products, without any more justification than his own rumblings. I agree it's certainly conceivable for WotC to explore this exclusion of OGL info, but I don't think it should be so aimed at Necro's leaked ideas.

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I don't think the point is to pick on NG, but just to say "this will be a big change".

He also may be wrong on the ToH. If a new one was just published under the GSL, its not clear That past publication under the OGL would stop it. What I think preventing publishing under both licenses would stop would be something like an update of say True20 to include both 3rd and 4th ed mechanics.

I've been modifying my language from my initial reaction. I don't think Mr. Pramas is intentionally slagging on Necro's plans. I just think it was just a bit unintentionally FUDdy. No Malice.