Green Ronin not signing GSL (Forked Thread: Doing the GSL. Who?)

[Wyrmshadows]

The whole issue of a supposed glut is something I cannot get concerned about because as far as I know I have never seen a 3pp hold a gun to anyone's head and force a purchase. If you don't want it, don't buy it. The market will shake out the wheat from the chaff. 3pp who create good products will do well and survive, 3pp who create junk will fail.

IMO, WoTC helped the 3e glut along rather nicely with its constantly released sourcebooks that contained an endless stream of PrCs, feats and spells which IMO were often no better balanced, creative, innovative or imaginative that that produced by 3pp.

In some ways, the real glut was of PrCs and feats and not drow sourcebooks. The constant supply of new and shiney ability packages eventually made the core classes less and less attractive and caused DMs great consternation because the 3e mindset was that somehow if a DM said "no" he wasn't allowing his players the full D&D experience (whatever the hell that was). The glut of feats and PrCs allowed the creation of super-munchkin builds but this glut was driven by the market because players couldn't get enough of things.

3pp were certainly responsible for 3e/3.5e's glut, but WoTC was just as guilty if for different reasons.



Wyrmshadows

 

[BeauNiddle]

The whole issue of a supposed glut is something I cannot get concerned about because as far as I know I have never seen a 3pp hold a gun to anyone's head and force a purchase. If you don't want it, don't buy it. The market will shake out the wheat from the chaff. 3pp who create good products will do well and survive, 3pp who create junk will fail.

Bolded the important bit.

That's fine in theory but it's a bit more questionable in practice.

The problem is not, and never has been, the amount of product out there - it's the amount of product sitting on store shelves. For the hobbyist who knows what he's doing, does research and orders online (pdf or dead tree) then the 'glut' was good because it led to lots of very fine companies getting a break and hitting 'the big time'.

For the stores it was a problem. They had a lot of their cash tied up in books that wouldn't sell. They had store space taken up that they couldn't reuse. A casual purchaser who comes in to the store is confronted with a massive list of product and no way to pick between them. Worse yet the store owners might push the 'bad' products on them just to clear back stock.

People new to the hobby also faced the same problem. Which of the products whould they buy? If they got into the hobby were they expected to buy all of them? If they made a bad purchase should they throw it away and try again or should they leave the hobby (possibly permanently)?

The glut created a barrier of entry to the hobby and drained away resources from those who were going to stay. Every dollar spent on chaff was a dollar removed from the gaming pool.

 

[amethal]

Necromancer Games is going 4E, just Tome of Horrors will be 3.5E/Pathfinder if anything other than what it currently is.

I'd say they are probably going GSL, whereas at one time I'd have said they were certainly going to.

At one time we were going to get Tome of Horrors, Alternative Players Handbook and Adventure Path.

Now the ToH is off the list. There are also concerns about whether the APH is possible (or at least sensible) under the GSL.

So far, the Adventure Path seems to still be a go.

Orcus's enthusiasm sold the ToH 4 to me even though I have no plans to switch to 4th edition. I really hope they produce 4th edition stuff because it would be such a shame to see all that enthusiasm finally drained away by WotC. I think they will, but its no longer a certainty in my opinion.

 

[Angellis_ater]

Indeed - Clarks silence and his less-than-steller view of the GSL does seem worrysome for the major 3PPs stance towards GSL.

 

[The Cardinal]

Great news!

Paizo, GR - now, if Necro would follow, I'd be a very happy DM...

(...because then I'd only be waiting for Goodman to see the light...)

 

[Lizard]

Thanks for giving me a reason to dig the GSL. I'm still basically neutral towards, it but I'm all in favor of something to keep umpteen-billion drow sourcebooks from coming out.

However, there's nothing in the GSL to prevent it. Indeed, since there's no ability to use other publisher's stuff, not only will there be a thousand Drow books, they'll all be incompatible...

 

[Alzrius]

However, there's nothing in the GSL to prevent it. Indeed, since there's no ability to use other publisher's stuff, not only will there be a thousand Drow books, they'll all be incompatible...

Actually, there is something in the GSL to prevent it - the 4E SRD doesn't list drow as one of the monsters that 3pp's can use. The word "drow" only appears in the entry for "drow poison," and not in the monster list. And since the GSL forbids you to use monsters that aren't in the SRD, or redefine terms...well, that pretty much means there'll be zero 4E drow books.

 

[Lizard]

Actually, there is something in the GSL to prevent it - the 4E SRD doesn't list drow as one of the monsters that 3pp's can use. The word "drow" only appears in the entry for "drow poison," and not in the monster list. And since the GSL forbids you to use monsters that aren't in the SRD, or redefine terms...well, that pretty much means there'll be zero 4E drow books.

So there will be books on "Cave Elves" or "Spider Elves" or whatever...

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Actually, there is something in the GSL to prevent it - the 4E SRD doesn't list drow as one of the monsters that 3pp's can use. The word "drow" only appears in the entry for "drow poison," and not in the monster list. And since the GSL forbids you to use monsters that aren't in the SRD, or redefine terms...well, that pretty much means there'll be zero 4E drow books.

Huh?

If it's not listed in the SRD, then that opens the door wider to making your own.

But as Lizard pointed out-- just name it something different. I was surprised he missed "dark elves" but there you go.

 

[Desdichado]

What (I think) he's saying is that by placing restrictions on what can be done, it creates more of an incentive to look for the holes and fill them, as opposed to just re-inventing the wheel. (Whether or not you agree that it works, or is a good idea, is a different story.)

The problem wasn't reinventing the wheel, it was usually that third party guys were preinventing the wheel.

They weren't redundent concepts for a book... until WotC came in and stepped on their toes.