New GSL Announcement

Dragonblade said:

Some of you people apparently spend so much time playing D&D that you can't get your head out of fantasy land.

I have seen posts in this thread comparing the GSL policy to exploitation of 3rd world workers, all the way to saying that the GSL is an anti-trust violation. Give me a #$%^ing break!

I've seen WotC compared to spoiled children, even. But really, they are more like the kid who offered to share their toys only to see the other kids snatch them up and walk off with them. So they brought some new toys and said we'll share these but you have to play with us and return the ones you took last time.

The only "spoiled" children I see are the ones who feel they are entitled to toys that don't belong to them.

WotC doesn't have to have any GSL at all. Period. The fact that they have one is a generous gesture. If you don't like the terms, then don't use it. But lets cut all the childish whining and bitching, and this ridiculous sense of entitlement.

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Drop the personal insults. Now. Patience gettng very short.

GMSkarka said:

The fact that we haven't had a WotC confirmation of the "company-wide" ultimatum --and, given continued posts on other subjects, it seems a rather purposeful lack of confirmation -- isn't helping things.

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Purposeful lack of response? Careful speaking to motivations of posters. Also, this IS the weekend people. They're not on the clock right now, if they post here it's b/c they want to.
Entirely possible they also need to wait till Monday for more clarity to bounce a few things off people first. Who knows.

Goobermunch said:

Is that a fair recapitulation of where you're at Lizard?

--G

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I'm going more on a quote someone posted from Lidda on a different forum (WOTC?) where she seemed to say the restriction was based on PRODUCT, not COMPANY -- which is pretty reasonable, given the other options, though certainly not my preference. I've posted questions which ought to eliminate all ambiguity in several of the ongoing threads, but there's been no "official" answer as of yet.

Mouseferatu said:

The notion that games such as M&M, C&C, or T20 have to be ditched along with it just doesn't make any sense. I cannot see any way in which such games viably compete with, or have any real impact on, 4E. And I agree with those who have said that the industry is richer for having them.

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Correct. They do not compete with the D&D GSL; however, you are forgetting about the upcoming d20 GSL. I am willing to bet that d20 Modern 2e player's handbook will be a requirement for all d20 GSL games. True20 and M&M directly compete with WOTC here.

Lizard said:

I'm going more on a quote someone posted from Lidda on a different forum (WOTC?) where she seemed to say the restriction was based on PRODUCT, not COMPANY -- which is pretty reasonable, given the other options, though certainly not my preference. I've posted questions which ought to eliminate all ambiguity in several of the ongoing threads, but there's been no "official" answer as of yet.

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There shouldn't be any reason to have to pose unambiguous questions. There's no question how folks are interpreting this at the moment and why they're up in arms about it.

Clarification shouldn't require careful parsing of either the questions or the answers.

Lizard said:

I'm going more on a quote someone posted from Lidda on a different forum (WOTC?) where she seemed to say the restriction was based on PRODUCT, not COMPANY -- which is pretty reasonable, given the other options, though certainly not my preference. I've posted questions which ought to eliminate all ambiguity in several of the ongoing threads, but there's been no "official" answer as of yet.

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I am with you completely. But, I gotta say, a single quote that "seemed" to say something in a post that you don't recall where it was, seems a really tiny straw to be grasping.

But, it is a hope.

mxyzplk said:

Here's the conceptual problem with the GSL that means you do have to worry. As the current policy is being explained by Scott/Linae, the only thing prohibited for 4e licensees (GSL) is producing OGL games. But the GSL isn't an open license and they may change the terms at will. So with this licensing scheme, you have to understand you are taking a business risk. Wizards, at any time, can decide, for example "In fact, we don't want people producing 4e material to be producing *anything* else! We have confidence in 4e and are only supporting it ourselves you know!" At that point they could insist that you stop selling/developing your 4e product or stop selling/developing your other game. And I don't think anyone can say with a straight face this isn't a real risk, since they're already using this approach as a tactic.

Personally, I'm not sure the GSL is a tenable position for anyone who wants to do anything other than be a pure-play 4e support machine.

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And at that point, you can pull the ripcord and bail out of 4e. It's not like you're signing a contract to work for WotC that requires you to promise to never work for anyone else ever again. The license permits you to do some things pursuant to some conditions. If you want to quit being bound by those conditions, you just have to give up on doing the things the license permits you to do.

--G

BryonD said:

If Orcus' statements are correct then they are using the GSL as a tool to do as much damage to the OGL as possible. Your assessment completely fails to account for that.
This is about as generous as the Trojan Horse.

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Here is the thing though. WotC owns the OGL and they own d20. Its theirs to do with what they will.

But more importantly, any publisher can still use the OGL. Its out there forever. They can keep publishing under it or under the GSL. There is no trojan horse because the terms are right here and up front. If you are a publisher, you pick which one you want to use. Or they can use neither and make their own game.

Which brings up another interesting point. I don't see an OGL for any other company. Out of ALL RPGs companies, none have been as generous with their engine as WotC. NONE. Name one.

Heck even companies like Green Ronin and Paizo, who built their entire business off WotC's game design don't reciprocate to open gaming or give to it the way WotC has. Is Pathfinder going to be open? Is it going to be so open that I can make my own Pathfinder SRD website so my players can play Pathfinder without having to buy the books? Or even republish a "pocket" Pathfinder? No?

Yeah, thats what I thought.

Is White Wolf going to allow me to make a Storyteller website, so I can play the Storyteller system without having to buy the books? Is Green Ronin, going to allow me to make a M&M website that posts their entire game engine? Not likely, even though their entire system is a d20 derivative that wouldn't even exist without the OGL.

This whole thread infuriates me because I see WotC held to an impossible standard that no other company is held to. And this is despite the fact they have been the more supportive of open gaming than any other company.

Ladies and Gents,

I am not going to say anything else until I have the final license in my hot little hands.

I am reading the thread, absorbing all the opinions, rants, speculations, thoughts, and musings. I have chimed in on a couple posts but beyond that, sitting here on Saturday morning, with out the license in front of me, I am quickly skating into the realm of speculation and I don't not want to unnecessarily add gas to the fire that may or may not be there. Until I see the final language in the licenses I am going avoid claiming that the language will say x or y.

I will say this Linae and I (and a lot of other people at WOTC) worked our butts off to get the GSLs done.

First and foremost, we are trying to design the license to best support our business, the business of selling 4e products. We want third party publishers to support 4e. We want them to move forward with us. We'll have two licenses, one that supports fantasy genre gaming and one that acts as a bit of a catch all to support everything else (modern, sci-fi, super-hero etc). In the end this license may not be for everyone but we are designing it to be good enough for most. Regardless of what we do with the license and system, on the spectrum of fully closed to fully open, there will be alternative viewpoints and opinions and they all have a level of validity.

Wizards clearly derived benefit from the OGL but I think the jury will be out for eternity on exactly what the benefits were and weren't. It's the stuff message boards were made for. Was the OGL perfect? No, but it certainly got a lot of people playing and making RPGs and the industry is stronger for it. I am a big proponent of open gaming, I get the network effect. The OGL and D20 SRD created benefits for D&D 3.x but I also recognize there are some bugaboos in the openness as well.

We had simple goals in mind with the license. 1) Support WotC's core RPG business. 2) Continue the notion set with the OGL that if publishers want to make books that work with D&D (and other WOTC brands) there will be an option for them. 3) Have a license that works for WoTC but keeps our involvement in the license to as minimal as possible 4) Keep the barriers to entry as low as possible. Simple goals but not always simple solutions.

I am at GAMA next week. On Thursday I am back in the office and on Friday I hope to have the license in my hand. Many of us will spend a week or so combing over it, again and again, making sure we are totally happy with it, only then will we send it out to folks like Clark, Chris, Erik, Russ, and the other publishers we are talking with.

I will keep you posted on the final results as I am sure folks like Clark will do as well.

Noooooo!!! You can't have the weekend off! You must reply NOW!!

Have a good weekend. Enjoy family and friends. Nothing you say, at this point, without the actual license in your hand to back up what you say, is in anyway going to defuse the speculation (for or against) in this thread.

So, do what I do when my employees are driving me insane.

Go home. Relax. And leave all the crap behind you!