JPL said:
I rank "WotC might steal my cool ideas from the message board" right up there with "WotC will use the decency clause to force me to shred all of my OGL stuff." It could happen. It hasn't happened. It seems unlikely to ever happen.
Unless, of course, you run the Valar Project.......?
RC
EDIT: BTW, what odds would you have given on WotC announcing 4e just prior to the announcement? Here on EN World, it seemed that anyone who thought the rumours about 4e were just being unrealistic. After all, WotC had strongly implied just the opposite....
What about the odds of Dungeon and Dragon being cancelled? I bet a lot of people would have ranked that right up there with "WotC might steal my cool ideas from the message board".
Remember when WotC denied the rumour about a tiered license? Or when they claimed that 4e would be published under the OGL? What odds would you have given then that 4e would be published instead under a tiered agreement that is anything but open? Up there with "WotC might steal my cool ideas from the message board"?
How about that the DI would suck when it first appeared? A lot of folks here scoffed at that idea, because it would be such an obviously bad move for WotC. Still up there with "WotC might steal my cool ideas from the message board"? No? How about the idea that you'd have to pay for randomized virtual minis?
And while we're looking at "WotC might steal my cool ideas from the message board", let's look at a much more likely scenario -- WotC might coincidentally publish something sorta like something Green Ronin published. Now, normally this would have nothing to do with you. But lets say that you discussed this Green Ronin product on Gleemax, and lets say that you quoted the relevant section of text. What now?
Well, whether you realized it or not, when you quoted that text you claimed that you had the right to do so. Moreover, you claimed that you had the right to transfer the right to use it (and to copyright, patent, and trademark it) to WotC. Moreover, you agreed that if there is any fallout from this, you would foot the legal bill. And pay any fines, royalties, etc., awarded to Green Ronin as a result of that action.
Now, see, I view that as a lot more likely of a scenario than "WotC might steal my cool ideas from the message board". I view that as a lot more likely than the cancellation of Dungeon and Dragon, than WotC barefacedly trying to call the tiered-not-OGL an OGL, and than the OGL being modified to prevent Valar from publishing
The Book of Erotic Fantasy under the STL.
I do not view it as less likely than the announcement of 4e, or the DI sucking hard, because I expected both of those things.
Of course, in this case, the rights granted are irrevokable and perpetual, so you might go through the rest of your lifetime not knowing if that shoe is going to drop. Though I suspect that it will drop quietly on some poor schmoe before the announcement of 5e.
RC
