New GSL Announcement

Bacris said:

If the Paizo / Necro 3.x / 4E deal ends up being legal, I guess I'll need to separate Dreamscarred Press into two separate entities, with two separate legal documents, and two separate business accounts, because I have too much invested in a variety of 3.x / True20 / M&M products to drop the OGL and migrate to 4E.

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Wizards has confirmed to me that my arrangement with Paizo is fine. Necro and Paizo are legitimate preexisting companies that have a distribution agreement. Neither is a subsidiary of the other. So long as I just do 4E and Paizo does either 3E or 4E, it will work fine. And, from my end anyway, that is the plan.

I guess I could take GSL and Andreas could take OGL, and figure out the logistics after the fact.

Mentalis Design was originally going to be a separate legal entity, I guess we'll go back to that, since this doesn't leave us any other option to support multiple systems and move forward with 4E.

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That, clearly, was the immediate solution that suggested itself to me and I'm sure everyone else. Dont know if that will work or not, though. And talking about it here probably might affect whether or not a restriction on doing stuff like that gets into the final of the GSL

Scott_Rouse said:

We have invested multiple 7 figures in the development of 4e so can you tell me why we would want publishers to support a system that we have moved away from?

This is not spite, malice or some evil scorched earth policy. Yes, we want people to make 4e books and stop making 3.x. Does that surprise you?

It won't surprise me if the GSL is not for everyone. If M&M, C&C, Conan, or other OGL stand-alones are successful enough for those publishers to sustain their business more power to them. You'll get to buy their books in the future. If not, then they can jump on our license and take advantage of some pretty good perks including getting to use the most valuable trademark in PnP RPGs on their products and gain access to our IP/PI.

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You can not be serious. This is indeed a "scorched earth" policy.

So any publisher cannot put out anything under the OGL - even completely "3e unrelated" items - if they want to utilize the GSL? Mutants & Masterminds? True20? Spirit of the Century? The Action! system? The OGL wasn't tied to the d20 SRD, it was a generic open license to use. There's a bunch of OGL games that don't in any way realistically compete wih 4e, except from the petty "we hate any other game than 4e and would like to see it stomped out of the marketplace" way.

*shrug*

It would be entirely possible for us to sever entirely and not be a shady practice, but actually be two separate entities, thereby not trying to cheat the system.

It just disheartens me - because this decision essentially means that Dreamscarred Press will likely not move to support 4E for a significant amount of time. And psionic support in D&D has always been modest, at best, which was the whole point we started the company.

The new policy disgusts me as a WotC consumer. From what I understand of the hobby, not a single one of the third-party publishers poses (or has EVER posed) any threat to WotC's bottom line. So if a 3e edition of Freeport exists and a 4e edition of Freeport exists on the same store shelf, 4e will collapse? Are you serious?

As a DM who uses published adventures exclusively, the 3e adventures and settings provided by Green Ronin, Paizo and others drove my desire to purchase EVERY 3e WotC book published with only TWO exceptions. I fully intended to buy and run both 4e and Pathfinder--and not one of my purchases would have detracted one from the other as I would have collected both lines with equal fervor.

WotC's stance is a direct attack on my collection of their own 3e material. While my 3e material might have become naturally obsolete over the course of time, they want to render it immediately obsolete. So, yes, I am mad about this.

So, if the policy from the top-down is that you either have to be 4e or 3e and can't possibly be both, then my stance as a consumer will have to be the same.

Wulf Ratbane said:

And any publisher that goes along for the 4e ride this time is going to have to look at this turn of events and wonder what happens next time. It's a Frog-and-Scorpion moment.

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That, my friend, is a very insightful comment.

That is the sort of stuff actual publishers consider.

The OGL is open and cant be revoked. Clearly the GSL is way less open than that and likely will be revocable (we'll have to see). At a core level, one concern is whether to base a product line on a license that Wizards can revoke at will or one they cant ever revoke. Clearly, from a pure self-preservation standpoint, it is better to do products under a license that can't ever be revoked. So there is a strong incentive to continue to use the OGL and never adopt the GSL. And Wizards' forced choice here may well force people to NOT support 4E who otherwise would have.

Mouseferatu said:

I don't think anyone who actually thinks it through should be mad at WotC.

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If, by "think it through" you me "put aside all your personal concerns and only consider what's good for WotCs as a buniness", perhaps. But if this is in fact as bad as it appears on the surface (and not seeing the GSL in its final form, I can't say if it is), I seriously think there could be fans out there who will be affected and have every reason to be irked.

Orcus said:

So this hypothetical choice that people see as being taken away is just that, a hypothetical choice.

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Consider if you will, three examples:
- A small company has a particular specialty area that has given it a small but dedicated buyer pool for its OGL fantasy products. Upon hearing there is no early buy-in fee and seeing that their area of specialty is not covered under 4e, immediately and publicly contemplates the creation of a 4e product in their niche. But now, to do so, either their existing fans or prospective new buyers interested in their niche will come away with their gaming tastes unfulfilled.
- Another company has a somewhat broader array of products, but has also developed a few niches, including niches that fit a particular non-d20 game well that just so happens to be an OGL product (not based on the D20 SRD). Though d20 fantasy sales have flagged, this company may well be enticed to dip into the refreshed 4e GSL market... but at the cost of no longer catering to the non-d20 game.
- Another company has strong non-d20 STL, but OGL/D20 SRD based lines. Company also had a strong reputation as a d20 fantasy publisher, but had retreated from the D20 fantasy market due to weak sales therein. Many old fans who have switched to 4e would love to see a new generation of D&D targeted fantasy products from them, but the company in question's other OGL based lines are too strong to simply scuttle.

As you probably could guess, not one of these is hypothetical (indeed, two of them have posted in this thread since I started composing this post.) Hopefully, these constitute the "corner cases" spoken of earlier, but I think at least 1 of these seems like the exact sort of thing this is designed to stop.

Orcus said:

Bryon, please dont bash on Scott.

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I strongly disagree with what he said (directly to me).

He has done way too much for us. I dont know for sure, but my guess is that the GSL was a battle. Just look at the time it took. And he got it done. He and Linae got us the ability to support 4E. Is it exactly like we want it. No. But for goodness sake we need to respect the man that accomplished what a few weeks ago I thought was impossible--4E can be supported by third parties. That is a huge accomplishment.

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I am praying that some huge misunderstanding is a work here. I was glad to be wrong this morning. I will be completely thrilled if sometime soon it turns out this is also wrong.
But if this is what he has done "for us". Then I would prefer nothing.
I see this accomplishment as a large net lose for gaming overall. 3P support for 4E is not the be-all end-all.
I'd easily prefer no GSL than a GSL that specifically harms the OGL community.

Gotham Gamemaster said:

So, if the policy from the top-down is you either have to be 4e or 3e and can't possibly be both, then my stance as a consumer will have to be the same.

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Sigh. (and I dont do that much).

I really hoped that the GSL would put an end to the 3E/4E division.

Guys, please lighten up on this. The GSL is not finalized. All this complaining could get the whole thing yanked. That would be a catastrophe. Do I think they would go back after making an announcement, no, probably not. But lets please let the dust settle.

Orcus said:

That, my friend, is a very insightful comment.

That is the sort of stuff actual publishers consider.

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Since I haven't published jack in more than a year, I won't take offense at that.

(I assume none was intended, but it made me laugh.)