GSL news.

[Piratecat]

Perhaps my memory is failing, but I don't know if I ever knew who WotC was talking to earlier in the year.

Does anyone know who was (or might have been) part of that January call?

I don't have time to track it down right now, but my news article on the call listed every company that was part of it. That might help.

 

[LordArchaon]

I have to admit. This has been a great week for 4E news/marketing.

Yes.
Purely hypothetically speaking, I guess they gained something near to 50% more buyers this week.
Reason number one the preview of better and/or more comprehensibly improved monsters, reason number two this free GSL announcement. Because they gained both on the product quality side, and on the "company moral" side...

Me, I was bought since the beginning, I'm always optimist towards changes, even more if they're presented as improvements by a company which really managed to improve things since 3.0. I tried to play 3.0 Icewind Dale videogame some time ago, and I got bored in few minutes by the rules themselves. On the other side, my 3.5 campaign which always had feat retraining, no penalty for multiclassing, and no banned material when it was from WotC, is a completely different thing. 4e is just going to be EVEN BETTER.

 

[mach1.9pants]

As has already been said- excellent news! I am not a huge buyer of 3rd part stuff (10 or so hard backs, WotBS mainly) but I am really excited about the Necromancer APHB. Just to have some of the classic (not included) classes we can use, straight away. When the official ones come out I will keep the Necro or swap as I see fit.

And to those WotEE*C/PFoH** conspiracy theorists, time to start on the next ones, eh?

*Wizards of the Evil Empire's Coast
**Peoples Front of Hasbro, terrorist organisation.

 

[Lacyon]

Unfortunately by your statement that you think it isn't a big deal to wait comes off as either it being an arbitrary decision to keep it secret, or that you are dodging the question as to why.

It doesn't really seem that way to me. It looks pretty clear that the reason is just to give a bit of a reward to those were willing to commit early:

They were some of the first to commit to the NDAs and were willing to pay the $5k before we eliminated the idea of an early dev kit.

 

[Morrus]

I don't have time to track it down right now, but my news article on the call listed every company that was part of it. That might help.

Yes, people can deduce from that if they want to make the effort to track down that news article.

Obviously, I wouldn't speak for other the publishers involved, but I will confirm that EN Publishing is very happy to be able to to participate fully. And, while I can't reveal the contents of the Q&A part of the email, I can say that 4E WotBS is a go (deduce from what what you will).

I'm sure other publishers will identify themselves (the email sent gave them permisison to do so, NDAs notwithstanding).

 

[CleverNickName]

I can always tell when there has been a major news release regarding 4th Edition: ENWorld's bandwidth drops to nil.

A couple of comments, both from the announcement and from reading the posts so far in this thread.

1. This is the best news I've heard all year. Seriously. It looks like I will be able to play 4E with my online friends using Fantasy Grounds just like we do with 3.x, and that is the biggest and best selling point I have seen for 4E thus far for my little gaming group. Bar none.

2. Pathfinder was never intended to be a replacement for 4th Edition. If anything, it was presented as an alternative system to both 3.5 and 4E. It has always stood alone, for good or bad, and will continue to do so. Like GURPs.

3. Maybe the SRD could have more generic names for powers and feats? You know, in the same way that "Tenser's Floating Disk" became "Floating Disk" in the 3.5 SRD? This would make me happy...and save me a lot of trouble when/if I start a 4E game.

4. Publishers get to see the OGL and the SRD before anyone else simply because they are publishers: they are creating demand for the main product by increasing the amount of accessories. Making them available to the general public before the release of the initial product could decrease demand, and nobody wants that.

5. Glad to hear it, Morrus.

 

[Saishu_Heiki]

In case anyone else was wondering like I was, here is the excerpt from the News page:

WotC announces plans for 4e SRD and OGL: On January 7th 2008, Wizards of the Coast held a courtesy call with the 3rd party publishers who had expressed close interest in gaining advance access to the 4e rules. Attending the call were:

* Adamant Entertainment
* EN Publishing
* Expeditious Retreat Press
* Fantasy Flight Games
* Goodman Games
* Green Ronin Publishing
* Mongoose Publishing
* Necromancer Games
* Paizo Publishing
* Paradigm Concepts
* Privateer Press

On the line for WotC were Scott Rouse, Linae Foster (Licensing Manager), Sara Girard, Andy Collins, Bill Slavicsek, and Chris Perkins.

 

[James Jacobs]

Yup; to reinforce what several folk have already said... the Pathfinder RPG isn't Paizo's crazy attempt to replace D&D. Far from it. If there's room in today's market for Call of Cthulhu, D&D, Mutants and Masterminds, True20, etc. etc... there's room for the Pathfinder RPG.

I'm really excited about the GSL news, in any event. YAY!

 

[Rauol_Duke]

I don't have time to track it down right now, but my news article on the call listed every company that was part of it. That might help.

Here it is.

Attending the call were:
Adamant Entertainment
EN Publishing
Expeditious Retreat Press
Fantasy Flight Games
Goodman Games
Green Ronin Publishing
Mongoose Publishing
Necromancer Games
Paizo Publishing
Paradigm Concepts
Privateer Press
On the line for WotC were Scott Rouse, Linae Foster (Licensing Manager), Sara Girard, Andy Collins, Bill Slavicsek, and Chris Perkins.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

4. Publishers get to see the OGL and the SRD before anyone else simply because they are publishers: they are creating demand for the main product by increasing the amount of accessories. Making them available to the general public before the release of the initial product could decrease demand, and nobody wants that.

No one is arguing about the SRD and not releasing that before June. No one is arguing that publishers need that information early or that their accessories won't increase demand.

What seems to happen allot is that the GSL and the SRD get conflated and tied together. This is not the case. The GSL provides the rules for using the SRD, it does not contain any information in the SRD. Unless the GSL has really bad provisions that would offend the D&D community there is not as far as I can see a good reason to keep the terms of the GSL secret, especially if the plan is to release it publicly anyway. Keeping the terms of the GSL secret has no impact one way or another on whether 3rd parties will publish anything to support 4E or not, or how soon those publications can get to press or not.