Answers on the GSL!

I keep seeing gamers going on about how the term "product line" is confusing and/or vague.

Buh? Not sure why that particular meme is growing.


"Product Line" is a very specific term for publishers. The response here is quite clear....and far, far better than the rumored "poison pill."

Zaister said:

I can't really imagine that the GSL will allow you to publish stuff that effectively pre-empts Wizards' own upcoming books like Player's Handbook II by publishing your own versions of druids, bards, and gnomes, for example.

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I've thought about that, and those terms are currently OGC and hence forbidden until WotC offers GSL version.

pawsplay said:

I've thought about that, and those terms are currently OGC and hence forbidden until WotC offers GSL version.

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The specifics of the classes are OGC. The words "druid," "bard," "monk," and "barbarian" are common English words, and are quite usable in any context.

We're no more forbidden from using terms like "druid" than we are from using terms like "attack."

Good news, all in all.

And for just about everyone, I imagine.

Hurrah!

This sounds like very good news. The new presentation of the GSL seems reasonable and I'm heartened that Wizards isn't going through with the more restricted terms seemingly included in the prior presentation of the license. I'll be visiting the Compleat Strategist in NYC in the morning to re-instate a pre-order of the gift set.

Kudos to Wizards!

-peter

Mouseferatu said:

A) My guess is that no, a book probably automatically qualifies as being part of the same product line as itself.

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But if the title is different, and the listed product line is different, calling the book "itself" doesn't really apply now does it?

B) What's with the constant efforts to find ways around the restrictions--restrictions which have consistently proven lighter than anticipated?

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Why should the fact that they're lighter than anticipated mean that restrictions should be happily accepted?

I'm personally very happy that WotC killed the "poison pill" clause. That said, I consider Open Gaming to be something to aspire to, and so far, the OGL is the best representation we've seen of that. The GSL is, in that regard, still a step backwards - it's just now a small step instead of a giant leap (and yes, I know the GSL has provisions that the OGL doesn't, such as using "mind flayer" and "displacer beast" etc. It's still less Open than the OGL).

I completely understand why WotC is doing this. I'm also glad 4E will be as accessible as it is. But this is still a regression from what the gaming community had before, and as such I, personally, want to keep looking for ways of working with the GSL that allow OGL-levels of Openness.

As it stands now, from the prospective of Open Gaming, the GSL is better than it could have been. But that doesn't mean it's as good as it could be.

Well, it's good to see that companies will be able to produce products for both OGL/3.x and 4.0.

Mouseferatu said:

B) What's with the constant efforts to find ways around the restrictions--restrictions which have consistently proven lighter than anticipated?

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I don't think people are trying to find ways to maliciously subvert the license. It is more an attempt at understanding exactly what the license entails and trying to anticipate some of the ripple effects. The problem is that we don't have enough information to understand the details because we haven't seen the specific wording of the GSL. Sure, there may be people that want to subvert the license just to see if they can do it. But the majority of us would just want to understand better.

Speculation and debate will remain until the GSL is finally published in June. Though I think the FAQ definitely helps.

GMSkarka said:

I keep seeing gamers going on about how the term "product line" is confusing and/or vague.

Buh? Not sure why that particular meme is growing.


"Product Line" is a very specific term for publishers. The response here is quite clear....and far, far better than the rumored "poison pill."

Click to expand...

Can you elucidate? I have been out of the book trade for a while (over 11 years), but when I hear product line, I think in somewhat broad terms.

For example, Fantasy Flight Games had the Legends & Lairs product line. As a hypothetical example, they could choose to remove the d20 branding from the current PDF products and release them as OGL products. But in the future, if they wanted to release a new GSL compliant product under the Legends & Lairs product line, it looks like they would need to remove all the previous OGL products from the market.

Based on what we have been told about the GSL, am I interpreting that correctly?

This next question can probably be answered much better by Clark Peterson, but I will toss it out there as well.

From what I can tell, the Tome of Horrors products could be considered a product line. So, if Necromancer Games wanted to release a new version, call it Tome of Horrors 4, under the GSL, they would need to remove the previous versions from distribution? In a like manner, if they decided to update the Tome of Horrors (Revised Edition) to something like Tome of Horrors (4.0), they would need to remove the previous versions of the Tome of Horrors "product line" from distribution.

Am I understanding that correctly?

Seriously, I know this is more relevant to publishers. I'm not trying to be obtuse, and you bring up a valid point. Those of us that are not publishers are more likely to misinterpret, and then rumormonger, based on our misunderstanding. So if any of the publishers would like to explain in a little more detail, I would certainly appreciate it.

Thanks!

This is better than I expected, though I would still like to see something that allowed a magazine (Kobold Quarterly) to publish articles using both the OGL and GSL. (I don't suppose articles in the same mag could be a different product line?)