Revised GSL TODAY!

James Jacobs · Mar 5, 2009

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
To be blunt here: That's just male cow excrement, and it will stay that, no matter how often they will repeat this opinion.
I don't know what is their "true" opinion, or if they really believe it, but that's what it is. None of the adventure paths I have played in os far (Dungeon or Pathfinder) contained anything that couldn't be converted storyline wise to 4E. In fact, that is exactly what we have done with Savage Tides and Curse of the Crimson Throne (and a little bit with Rise of the Runelords.)

That I agree with.

It's worth remembering that we've had the rug yanked out from under us by WotC once already. The loss of the magazine license was actually handled pretty graciously and nicely by WotC—it could have been a LOT worse for Paizo, but WotC was very generous with the event (as seen by their extending our license by several months so we could finish out Savage Tide).

Yet still, having the license taken away was an incredibly frightening thing. As in, a lot of us were afraid that by the end of the year we'd be out of a job. We took a risk with starting up Pathfinder and it paid off big. We're taking an even bigger risk with the Pathfinder RPG and that's looking like it's gonna pay off even bigger.

Personally... speaking for only myself... after being laid off from WotC once, and after losing the magazine license... I'm pretty much all through with putting my fate in someone else's hands. I'm really proud of what we're doing with the Pathfinder RPG, and even though I think that the 4th edition rules are really elegant and well designed (I'm a bit less fond of the changes to the game's flavor and traditions)... it's still not the game I helped build.

Call it male cow excrement if you want, but my TRUE opinion is that Pathfinder RPG (and by extension, 3.5) is a better system to build the games that I want to write, develop, edit, and play. It's an opinion that everyone at Paizo shares, and that's the main reason we're supporting our own game rather than looking to officially support 4th edition at this time.

That may not have been the case 1 or 2 or 5 years ago. It's certainly the case now.

EDIT: In any case, it's the "We can pull the plug on your license for doing something we don't like because it's too R-rated" part of the GSL that I really mean when I say that the GSL won't let us write the type of adventures we want to write. Especially since there's no definition of what might or might not trigger that reaction from WotC... what's appropriate to one reader isn't to another, and all that.

Darrin Drader · Mar 5, 2009

Mouseferatu said:
Have you read Necromancer material?

Maybe Clark's problem is just that he doesn't like the quality of BoEF, rather than the topic?

(Note: I've never read BoEF all the way through, just skimmed it. I'm not saying it is or isn't good. I'm saying that just because he thinks Book X is garbage, it doesn't necessarily follow that he objects to the topic of Book X.)

Yeah, when Anthony announced his company, I was excited at first because I thought it would be cool to have a company pushing the darker edges of D&D. I didn't realize that he was going for gamer pr0n. It isn't that I have an issue with pr0n, but after looking at the BoEF, I don't think it really fits the game at all. In fact I was kind of repulsed by it. Now if the concept would have been more along the lines of Book of Vile Darkness volumes 2 - 10, I could have jumped onboard that.

justanobody · Mar 5, 2009

Silly question again.... The old NEtobook of CArnal Knowledge including STDs, etc. All these things are possible in a fantasy world as disease is often a major problem....so without the gratuitous sex, could this trigger a "mature" rating and cause for alarm and termination of a GSL? opinions not legal advice requested....not trying to put anyone on the line, just throwing out an idea.

Shroomy · Mar 5, 2009

Darrin Drader said:
Yeah, when Anthony announced his company, I was excited at first because I thought it would be cool to have a company pushing the darker edges of D&D. I didn't realize that he was going for gamer pr0n. It isn't that I have an issue with pr0n, but after looking at the BoEF, I don't think it really fits the game at all. In fact I was kind of repulsed by it. Now if the concept would have been more along the lines of Book of Vile Darkness volumes 2 - 10, I could have jumped onboard that.

I find it funny that the BoEF is really the only OGL book that I regularly see in almost any Borders store; I'm surprised that more 12 year olds haven't figured that out yet. I've paged through it, but never in depth. In terms of mechanics, a CR 12 creature being able to summon a CR 20 monster was enough for me to put it back down.

Umbran · Mar 5, 2009

mxyzplk said:
Not everyone's a prude and recoils at the concept of adult content in D&D.

The implication that anyone who does not like the BoEF is a prude is NOT ACCEPTABLE. If you want to impugn the sexual mores of people, you are seriously on the wrong boards. I don't want to see you post in this thread unless the first words are an apology to all and sundry.

If that was not your intention, you were not paying close enough attention. Nobody should expect any patience with such a statement. This thread has been warned once.

This is warning #2.

There will be no warning #3. And, given that this topic is important to our community, it is likely to end in bans, rather than thread closure.

The Book of Erotic Fiction is not the subject of the thread. Please drop it.

CleverNickName · Mar 5, 2009

Wow. 12 pages in the thread already? The license has only been out a couple of days.

Everyone else is throwing their opinions around, and since I want to be like everyone else...

I don't like 4E. I played it, I DM'd it, I tried writing original content for it, and it just doesn't do it for me. But I am a freelance writer, so I have been very interested in the new GSL for a couple of reasons.

First of all, this new GSL will set the tone for all business relationships that WotC has with third-party publishers. And second, the GSL will guide the evolution of the game more than anything else. The more contributing authors, the more variety and innovation...so this spiffy little document will give these aspiring writers a working, legally-protected platform to sell their ideas.

I think this GSL will do everything it was intended to do: create a solid network of high-quality authors, artists, and publishers, and grow the product line for the mutual benefit of Hasbro and 3PPs alike. So that makes it a success, in my humble (and non-legal) opinion, even though I probably won't ever use it.

As for the BoEF? Don't blame the license, and don't blame the publisher. That book is truly horrible, but the reason that manuscript got approved and the book got printed was because of consumer demand...however slight. It wasn't because of a lack of control over IP.

In other words: if people would stop buying crappy products, publishers would stop making crappy products.

So when the 3PPs start cranking out new material by the boatload, resist the urge to throw your money at anything with the new logo on it. Be selective. Demand good products, and make those publishers earn their money. If a book is awesome, buy it and tell your friends to do likewise...but if a book is awful, do not buy it and warn your friends not to.

Remember: Only You Can Prevent Crappy Products.^TM

Atlatl Jones · Mar 5, 2009

Lord Xtheth said:
Section 18 Waiving my rights to a jury trial of despute. If wizards does take my stuff, and I think its not right, I have to ask them politely to fix it and hope for the best.

You're seriously misunderstanding what that clause means. You waive your right to a jury trial, not to any trial. You still get a trial, but it's with a judge making the final decisions. It's common to include this in business contracts, because judges are a lot more predictable than juries. Judges can generally be relied upon to understand the law and make their decisions based on it, while juries make decisions for all sorts of wild reasons.

mxyzplk · Mar 5, 2009

James Jacobs said:
It's worth remembering that we've had the rug yanked out from under us by WotC once already.... I'm pretty much all through with putting my fate in someone else's hands...

How dare you learn from experience! :devil:

EDIT: Once I already submitted, I see I am told to apologize to Clark about the BoEF stuff in my next post. OK Clark, sorry, I apologize, you are right, it is garbage.

JohnRTroy · Mar 5, 2009

EDIT: In any case, it's the "We can pull the plug on your license for doing something we don't like because it's too R-rated" part of the GSL that I really mean when I say that the GSL won't let us write the type of adventures we want to write. Especially since there's no definition of what might or might not trigger that reaction from WotC... what's appropriate to one reader isn't to another, and all that.

Exactly, that's a smart decision.

Basically, I see licensing D&D or going with the older or variant versions as similar to a choice that a comic writer or artist does when he decides to either do "work-for-hire" with a big company or be independent and have control over copyright, trademark, and full ownership.

Anybody who licenses anything takes a trade-off. And it's important to recognize that.

I think the main gist Clark, Charles, and others have said is, to use the analogy, that being in the former camp is not necessarily a bad choice, as long as you know what you're getting into, and get enough in return.

FourthBear · Mar 5, 2009

mxyzplk said:
There are plenty of licenses which don't have these restrictions, and it's not unreasonable to make a business decision that you don't want to incur the risk of either one of these.

I have to admit that I find this really unlikely. Are there really "plenty of licenses" which don't involve some kind of content control, whether in the form of a morals clause, freedom to withdraw license, right of review and refusal? Especially when the license is an open one with no royalties involved? It seems like any such license would almost immediately result in "Custer's Revenge" style problems or worse.

I would imagine most licenses that don't have some kind of clause that allows refusal based on content are much more narrow in scope and specific in the products they enable.