New GSL Announcement

I'm going to bed. I can't take it anymore.

I hate (yes, that is a strong word) that this issue is overshadowing the fact that 4E will be open. I am so bummed. I'm not saying it shouldnt overshadow it. It is a legitimate thing to discuss. I was just hoping to bask in the accomplishment of 4E being open. I believe it was a fight for it to even be open at all. And for that I thank Scott and Linae. I think we were perilously close to 4E being closed. Given that, any openness is wonderful.

Maybe when I wake up Scott will post that this is all a big misunderstanding.

I understand Wizards' business motives behind driving support to 4E, but I have to admit that Byron is right. The community would have been enriched by some companies like Paizo and GR and others who could easily have continued to support their own systems (based on the OGL) and also credibly support 4E with a seperate line.

That said, I'm going to sleep on it and then wait for the final license to see the terms and decide. While we know that publishers have to choose one or the other, we dont know the mechanism of enforcement and that may make a difference.

But I still want to end the day (and the week) feeling good that 4E is open and that we will be able to support it. That, in and of itself, is a huge accomplishment. And, though it may not be on the terms that everyone would prefer, I still think Scott and Linae deserve our thanks, not our rotten tomatoes.

Nighty night.

Clark

Arrond Hess said:

Does that include keeping what you kill?

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Hush!

They might write in a clause for that..

EDIT:Before I get going, the snarky "is wotc going to add a clause of blah blah and keep me from doing X" is very annoying and childish. Also Linae (hope I spelled that right it's late), I think reminding people that WoTC believes in 4E so strongly they aren't supporting any other edition is kind of disingenious. Of course you are, it's your new core product!

You have support for older versions in computers b/c not everyone upgrades OSes all at once, but you also have MS saying things like DX10 in Vista ONLY! That is what I would think is the more accurate description of the GSL or OGL situation instead of the (I think Lizard's) post about Office/Open Office, at least it would be if MS said "BTW, if you release this game as DX10 on Vista, you can't release it on any older versions of Windows. There are a few games that I believe are only found on Vista and no XP versions w/DX9 is found.

Ok, back to my original post

Urizen said:

Unless I'm reading this thread wrong, I'm pretty sure that (AND I HOPE I"M WRONG), if you accept the terms of the GSL, you'll have to dump all your OGL stock.

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See that's where I'm at too, and I just reread the entire thread, plus similar threads on the WotC and Paizo boards that both point heartily to this one. Here is how the key points of the thread have progressed:

quote]
In post #39 lurkinglidda said:
No. That is not what I was trying to say. I'll try to reword it so it is a little clearer:

Publishers can put out a product under the OGL - OR - they can put out a product under a 4E GSL.

3.x or 4E

Not both.

One or t'other.

By "mutual exclusivity" I mean, different versions of the same product cannot occur at the same time.

Hope I don't come off as being snarky - I'm not trying to be mean or sound like I'm talking down or anything - I just want to make sure I'm communicating the message clearly![/quote]

Showing us that you can't have 2 versions of the same product supporting both at the same time. I believe there was another clarification that pointed out that one book w/dual stats would not be eligible either.

Then in post #51 Orcus said:

I believe, in fact, that it is even a bit more restrictive than people are seeing. It is not just that you cant mix the two licenses in one product. It is that if you use the GSL you cannot also use the OGL for 3E products.

In other words, publishers have to decide if they want to stay 3E or if they want to come along for the 4E ride.

It is not a product by product choice. It is a business by business choice. It is not "well, this product will be 4E using the GSL but the next one will be for 3E under the OGL."

In other words, Necro cant do 3 books for 4E then decide to go back and do a 3E book.

Or, along the same lines, if Paizo wants to do Pathfinder 3E, it cant do 4E products. If it does, it can no longer do 3E ones.

I have, however, specifically clarified that Necro can do 4E and Paizo can keep doing 3E Pathfinder stuff and that is just fine.

Once you are in for 4E, you are in, and cant go back (well, you could but you would presumably lose the right to use the GSL from that point forward).

I have to clarify if I will be able to do 3E stats as seperate downloads for 4E books. My guess is that I will not be allowed to do that under the GSL. But I havent asked that direct question.

By the way, this info was from Wizards. Unless I am misunderstanding what they told me or they didnt understand my question, this is how it will be.

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This post lead to lots of howling and gnashing of teeth and Orcs storming the Fellowship...er, many angry posts

Scott_Rouse followed this up eventually in post #99 and 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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This does not DIRECTLY (ie saying "Yes Clark was right in that post") confirm Clark's stance interpretation of the situation, but it certainly sounds like it could be correct. We DO still have the chance that someone read something wrong or the phrasing was slightly wrong and we don't have the GSL (Red Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot) or OGL (Blue Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot) only. Yes, I'm an eternal optimist.

I would also say that allowing companies to either actively produce for a)3.x or b)4E, but still be allowed to sell any OGL material released prior to the GSL could be a good middle ground.
I would also suggest that in that scenario, a non-fantasy OGL product would be free of the OGL or GSL only clause, since games like Mutants & Masterminds are competing with HERO, GURPS Champions and Silver Age Sentinels (plus more) and something like Spycraft would be against more modern era games rather than D&D.

I just want to see more posts of bullet points saying what IS and IS NOT permissible if someone publishes games using the GSL. Specifically the 4E D&D GSL. It's possible that if someone produces non-fantasy games w/the also mentioned d20 GSL, they might not have the same restriction about supporting the OGL as well. Who knows.

Psion said:

Just upthread, people were demanding the doomsayers to fess up...

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I took that as them chastizing the doomsayers for saying there would be no GSL. It does seem like people have been caught off guard by this (and Orcus said as much).

Psion said:

There was a thread on this exact possibility over on the OGF-D20-L forum, save that it was about the branding issues. The poison pill aspect is new, but the effect is the same for companies that choose to support 4e.

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That doesn't surprise me. With all the different forums, something that may be old hat on one forum may come as a huge surprise elsewhere.

Orcus said:

I'm going to bed. I can't take it anymore.

I hate (yes, that is a strong word) that this issue is overshadowing the fact that 4E will be open. I am so bummed. I'm not saying it shouldnt overshadow it. It is a legitimate thing to discuss. I was just hoping to bask in the accomplishment of 4E being open. I believe it was a fight for it to even be open at all. And for that I thank Scott and Linae. I think we were perilously close to 4E being closed. Given that, any openness is wonderful.

Maybe when I wake up Scott will post that this is all a big misunderstanding.

I understand Wizards' business motives behind driving support to 4E, but I have to admit that Byron is right. The community would have been enriched by some companies like Paizo and GR and others who could easily have continued to support their own systems (based on the OGL) and also credibly support 4E with a seperate line.

That said, I'm going to sleep on it and then wait for the final license to see the terms and decide. While we know that publishers have to choose one or the other, we dont know the mechanism of enforcement and that may make a difference.

But I still want to end the day (and the week) feeling good that 4E is open and that we will be able to support it. That, in and of itself, is a huge accomplishment. And, though it may not be on the terms that everyone would prefer, I still think Scott and Linae deserve our thanks, not our rotten tomatoes.

Nighty night.

Clark

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You know, I'm quite sure they worked their combines asses off to keep 4th edition open.

But, in my mind, it's not really all that "open" to me if I have to throw away my entire stock and start fresh.

It's not a choice I can make and stay in this industry, so it's not really a choice at all. I've worked hard to build up a customer base, and commited to publishing solid, quality true20 products. I'm not just going to throw away all of that hard work to get involved with a new system, no matter how shiny it might be.

I was excited to hear that 4th edition would be "open," but now, it's like they're asking every publisher who has worked their tails off since the birth of the OGL to just drop it all and start over again.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong. Maybe there WILL be a grandfather clause, who knows.

It's frustrating.

I know I'm just a new kid on the block, and don't count for much just yet, but this provision definitely saddens me as a publisher.

I developed Sinister Adventures to put all the BS of edition in the back seat and offer quality adventures for ALL systems (3.5, True 20, C&C, Pathfinder RPG, and yes...4E). Now I find that if I want to support one of these, I can't support the others. It definitely means I won't be supporting 4E in the near future as a lot of my customers have expressed how happy they are about the multi-system approach I'm using. Bummer...I dig on a lot of what 4E offers, and I won't be able to bring it to my adventures under the All or Nothing Ultimatum GSL.

Nick

P.S. It should be expressed: I'm not pissed at Wizards, just bummed about this. Hopefully I'll get to freelance for them again sometime soon now that the GSL is figured out.

Those smilies are quite funny. Though 'more' leads to <fatal error (etc.)> in the popup , which goes when you it of course (ouch.) Er, not so funny, perhaps.

Oh yeah, the GSL situation. Well, it's worse than I suspected it was going to be. Quite the feat, there.

WotC has certainly changed a lot in recent times, just going by the outward showings of their policies, AFAICS so far.

And not for the better, more's the pity.

I'll make an admission: I was hoping that WOTC would not come up with third-party licensing for 4E.

It was pretty clear from the way they were talking around the first of the year that they were trying to create some kind of "poison pill" to whack the prior OGL off the table. And that's exactly what they've done here. Since I personally don't like what I see in the radically different 4E game, I was very much hoping that wouldn't happen.

But it has: here's WOTC bullying the market into giving up OGL products. Here's WOTC spokespersons on a Friday night calling critical posters "trolls", and rather snarkily asking "does that surprise you?" when people realize that they're intentionally trying to kill off all 3E-based product lines. Here's WOTC perfectly serene about wiping out some number of distinct OGL games as collateral damage.

4E may have a third-party license, but it certainly is not an "open game", according to the previously established definition: http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/licenses.html

Open Gaming is what brought me back to D&D with the 3rd Edition (after a decade away from the game). The "poison pill" attack on Open Gaming definitely marks the end of my last 8-year stint playing current D&D. So for me it's a bit sad.

Alzrius said:

Wow...

I really don't know how to respond to that. That's more restrictive than I'd ever imagined the GSL would be. I'm amazed that's even legal, to put in a clause that your business must forsake the OGL entirely to use the GSL at all.

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I suspect this term would be non enforceable within the EU; EU competition law is full of stuff about "the requirement of good faith in business dealings". And the national courts of most EU nations are happy to strike down lopsided contract terms. But it's probably enforceable within the USA.

OK, I havent gone to bed yet. I have to step up and defend my girl Lidda. I dont think that trolls post was meant the way it came across.

Clark