You reap what you sow - GSL.

I know Bastion Press' Legacies uses a ToH monster in one of its adventures. I know one of the Warlords of Arena (in Bastion's Oathbound Arena) uses an OGC race and prestige class. I believe Goodman games has used ToH monsters in some of their DCC adventure modules as well.

The EnPublishing/Ambient Necromancy book Gar Udock has OGC stuff.

I know Green Ronin's Witch's Handbook adapted the OGC ritual system from Relics and Rituals, and Maladin's Gate added some new rituals in St. John's College of Abjuration.

WotC used OGC stuff in MM2 and significantly in Unearthed Arcana.

I believe a bunch of the "built from the ground up to meet a specific style" worldbook/alt PHs use some OGC stuff.

There are the compilation books that use tons of OGC, see various ones by XRP (monster geographica for the win!), Green Ronin (pocket grimoire, etc.), FFE (various), and Mongoose (various).

Back to the OP, for a moment.

Not being able to repring monster stat blocks is ridiculous. Will people who make adventures tweak a word or two, but pretty much have the same monsters? How does this work, if you are a publisher?

I doubt anyone will, but do any publishers have opinions yet on how this does, does not, effect what they planned to do?

And, dangit, I want my necromancer games products soon!

Zaukrie said:

Back to the OP, for a moment.

Not being able to repring monster stat blocks is ridiculous. Will people who make adventures tweak a word or two, but pretty much have the same monsters? How does this work, if you are a publisher?

I doubt anyone will, but do any publishers have opinions yet on how this does, does not, effect what they planned to do?

And, dangit, I want my necromancer games products soon!

Click to expand...

This is actually very much like what we did with our Dragonlance product, which wasn't OGL or d20 License, it was Official Wizards of the Coast Licensed Product, so we could use anything WotC published if it was appropriate to Dragonlance. Essentially, if we used a monster directly from the Monster Manual, i.e. didn't add class levels or change it in any way, we'd just say "see Monster Manual" after the name and its hit points. Any variant creature, NPC, new monster, etc got its own stat block.

So, nothing really new or limiting there, at least from my own experience writing sourcebooks and adventures for d20.

Cheers,
Cam

Mustrum_Ridcully said:

If EnWorld was under the OGL or GSL, yes. But they are not, thus what the GSL or the OGL say on the matter is immaterial. Copyright Law, Fair Use and similar stuff are the only law relevant for EnWorld.

Click to expand...

EN World doesn't link to the OGL? I thought that it did. Certainly, WotC could demand that it did under the OGL.

Likewise, WotC could demand that either EN World have 4e content, or OGL content, but not both, under the GSL.

If 4e content isn't as well received as 3e content (and, from what I can tell, it is not thus far), and if places like EN World cut into the money WotC is hoping to make from Gleemax (and I have little doubt that, so long as a viable alternative to Gleemax exists, it will cut into Gleemax "subscription sales", esp. with the draconian board rules there), WotC will be forced into a position where it considers whether or not customer goodwill lost will damage the bottom line more than new Gleemax subscriptions will add to it. And, in the case of Dungeon, Dragon, the OGL, cloud-watching, etc., etc., etc., WotC has shown consistently that its current emphasis is not customer goodwill.


RC

Zaukrie said:

And, dangit, I want my necromancer games products soon!

Click to expand...

Going with Pathfinder are you? Otherwise good luck with that if WotC does not revise the license or make special arrangements with them.

Farland said:

I can't say as I'm very happy with the new GSL and SRD. It seems like the lawyers at WOTC have gone into overdrive. It doesn't give me a good feeling toward the company.

Click to expand...

Heh. You think those are draconian? Take a look at the Gleemax TOU!

(shudder)

RC

Going with Pathfinder are you? Otherwise good luck with that if WotC does not revise the license or make special arrangements with them.

Click to expand...

I hope you are wrong, but I fear you are right.

No, we've moved onto 4E. However, if this license reads like I think it does, I don't understand how anyone publishes under it. It looks highly, highly restrictive on first read, and I fear that others will come to the same conclusion as me and not publish.

this does not mean I buy more WotC stuff, it means I don't buy more 3rd party stuff. WotC will NOT get more of my money by restricting others' ability to publish, I'll just drink more wine or play more golf, and my FLGS will suffer.

Cam Banks said:

This is actually very much like what we did with our Dragonlance product, which wasn't OGL or d20 License, it was Official Wizards of the Coast Licensed Product, so we could use anything WotC published if it was appropriate to Dragonlance. Essentially, if we used a monster directly from the Monster Manual, i.e. didn't add class levels or change it in any way, we'd just say "see Monster Manual" after the name and its hit points. Any variant creature, NPC, new monster, etc got its own stat block.

So, nothing really new or limiting there, at least from my own experience writing sourcebooks and adventures for d20.

Click to expand...

I don't buy much in the way of third party material (or supplemental material in general, I guess) but I got the impression that this was pretty much par for the course already. WotC adventures seem to have always done this judging from the free adventure downloads on the website, and Paizo's free D0-Hollow's Last Hope module -- which I assume was intended to be a sort of "This is how Paizo works, see how nice it is and buy our stuff that's like it!" product -- does it as well.

Even putting aside my very limited experience, I get the impression that space is always at a premium in these publications, and reprinting stat blocks from the MM seems like a fantastic way to waste it. Not having page numbers will be a bit of an annoyance, but it's certainly not something about to raise a fist over.

MongooseMatt said:

But you can't have it both ways

On the one hand, you have raised an opinion that the PPH was rude and disrespectful.

On the other, we have been talking about 3rd parties hoarding their own Open Content.

So, which is it? If 3rd parties should give up their Open Content (and , yes, they should), then surely the same applies to WotC? Or should Open Content be relatively closed, and so both WotC and 3rd parties can relax about other people using their material?

Click to expand...

I haven't said anything about 3rd parties not releasing open content. By "more open than most" I was referring to non-d20 games like Storyteller or Hero. Some d20 3rd parties have been pretty good about open content, some not so much. I wouldn't dream of trying to guess the percentage, especially by market share or units sold.

I was unaware of Dancy's double-dog-dare-you-to about a PPH-type product. I still think actually doing it was questionable, but no more so than the arrogance of the quote in the FAQ. The attitude of the gamers I mentioned before, though, is definitely offensive.

And, even though I singled out the PPH (fairly or not), my issue really is primarily with the sense of entitlement I've seen in a lot of gamers regarding the OGL. As I said in response to Erik Mona, above, most of the publishers have conducted themselves professionally WRT the issue.

I'm looking for some barbecue sauce for the crow I think I'm going to be eating, though. I'm still just as irritated about the sense of entitlement and the crappy behavior by a vocal number of gamers, and that's bleeding through to a lot of my commentary on this because it's been irritating me for quite some time. On the other hand, the more time I spend reading the GSL and pondering the implications, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that, while it isn't a clean break with the open content model, it's not a feasible implementation of content sharing, either.

If the OGL was gold -- and I really do think it was a great move for the industry and the game, and my guess is that it was at worst a break-even for WotC -- then the GSL is pyrite.

Does that help to explain my somewhat conflicting feelings on the matter?

RC, I think you're being a little too keen to beat on WotC, here.

There's no frickin' way WotC will do anything to shut down ENWorld at this point.

Regardless of what the legalese says or what they're capable of doing, WotC knows the value of ENWorld, and I'm sure anything here would fall under the purview of "fan site" material, which, I'd be astonished if it didn't let you do whatever the heck you wanted aside from, say, post PDF's of every new WotC book and re-post every article on the website (e.g.: pretty much copyright infringement).

Now, that's not to say the legalese might not make it possible or whatever. That's between Morrus and WotC's sharks. But ENWorld ain't going nowhere (though I confess that I'm not sure what ENPublishing is planning on doing...).