New GSL Announcement

[Arrond Hess]

Well, almost no cost. By my understanding, Necormancer will no longer be able to sell versions of Tome of Horrors, Bard's Gate, etc for 3.x once you begin to release GSL material. You won't even have the choice to convert it from d20 to OGL, you won't be able to sell both.

Hopefully, you have most of your stock sold and clear of the warehouse. If you don't, then it might make sense to hold off on GSL products until you are clear.

But it also kills the PDF channel. The presumptively evergreen products that would allow people to still pick up old material for old games in perpetuity. That goes away now.

This impacts me as a customer. There are a lot of game settings that I have that I like using OGL material in. I have always liked the idea that I would always be able to get this material.

But it looks like WotC doesn't want that to be available to me. So if a couple of years from now I want to break out my Dragonstar books to run a game for my kids, and I wanted to grab a couple of old PDFs that might complement the game from Necromancer Games, I might not be able to pick up any of those from Fantasy Flight Games or from Necromancer because you guys will have had to pull those PDFs if you wanted to publish under the GSL.

So I wouldn't say the GSL is available at no cost. One of the definitons of cost is a sacrifice, loss or penalty. I see the loss of support for products I enjoy today. A loss that is being enforced by WotC through exclusivity.

Likewise, I don't see it without having cost if a company needs to start a secondary & seperate venue if they want to produce products for both 3.x and 4th Ed..

 

[SSquirrel]

Not correct - there are no new "OGLs." There is one OGL (well, there's a couple versions). There are several SRDs for different games released in compliance with the OGL.

Can I suggest that folks brush up a lil' before they wax too eloquent?

No need to jump on me too much here man, I was thinking of the new licensing deal coming out soon from them that is free and allows their logo to be used. Double checking teh true20 site shows me this:

"If you want to publish your own True20 material, you can take advantage of the True20 Adventure Roleplaying Trademark License. This is a free license that must be used in conjunction with the Open Game License."

So they have their own STL now not their own OGL. My bad.

 

[SSquirrel]

Yah, you're probably right for True20. M&M though I think could make a transfer to a pure house system okay.

How much would M&M have to change to no longer fall under the OGL but still have the game be basically the same? Change to a percentile roll instead of a d20 (neatly have it all still be 5% increments of success tho), reword abilities like Dodge that appear in the SRD, what else?

Well, almost no cost. By my understanding, Necormancer will no longer be able to sell versions of Tome of Horrors, Bard's Gate, etc for 3.x once you begin to release GSL material. You won't even have the choice to convert it from d20 to OGL, you won't be able to sell both.

Hopefully, you have most of your stock sold and clear of the warehouse. If you don't, then it might make sense to hold off on GSL products until you are clear.

But it also kills the PDF channel. The presumptively evergreen products that would allow people to still pick up old material for old games in perpetuity. That goes away now.

Neatly tho it still keeps WotC in the money as they can still continue to sell pdfs of games that never relied on the OGL. Like OD&D-2E.

Also, since WoTC is going to be producing 4E material, does that mean they will also have to stop selling all 3E material? Altho since they had the d20 logo they would fall under the d20 STL, which is going away...so yeah maybe they do heh.

*saves space in next post for someone to correct me by saying WotC was never bound by these rules in some manner.*

 

[Kristian Serrano]

Also, since WoTC is going to be producing 4E material, does that mean they will also have to stop selling all 3E material? Altho since they had the d20 logo they would fall under the d20 STL, which is going away...so yeah maybe they do heh.

I was just thinking about this, but specifically with respect to their own PDFs at RPGNow.com. It seems WotC's effort to push 3e out of the way to make room for 4e is an aggressive one. Will WotC cease to offer these PDFs after 4e is released? Will they be forced (or will they choose to) no longer offer those PDFs? I was hoping they'd discount the price of those after 4e is released, but this sounds like they might stop selling them altogether, which is unfortunate as I wanted to build an entire OEF library of PDF versions of my 3.5 books, especially Eberron books.

 

[Mystaros]

What I absolutely DO NOT understand is a restriction that says if a company has a line of 4E support products, then they are also barred from having lines of unrelated product, supporting Mutants & Masterminds, Traveller, Runequest, Action!, FATE or any of the other OGL-released systems.

I am sincerely hoping that this is NOT the case -- but I trust Clark. If he says that is what he's been told, then I believe him. The absolute refusal by Scott to simply say whether or not that is case pretty much confirms it.

Well, as they are obviously reading this thread, perhaps we could all chime in and say "Please, let the clause refer not to OGL products as a whole, but specifically to OGL products utilizing the d20 SRD."

Still not the best solution, but a solution. So as long as you keep your Runequest or Traveller or Action! Section 15's clear of any d20 SRD references, you should be fine.

Unfortunately, I think to keep things simple, they may well go with a blanket no-OGL policy. That way they don't have to worry about having someone check the Section 15s on a bunch of new products... and they knock out minor competition at the same time.

 

[Orcus]

I understand your point, but MRQ is not a D&D spin-off. It uses the OGL, but doesn't derive material from the SRD.

Thats fair and thats my mistake. I probably should have just used, say, Mutants and Masterminds. But I was starting to feel like I was picking on Pramas

 

[Orcus]

OK, this is an important point. "Open" isn't a meaningless marketing term, it's a very specific attribute of a license. Here's the Wikipedia definition of open content: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_license.

For those who fear knowledge, I'll sum up here. Open content is:
- royalty free (you don't have to pay anyone to use it)
- share alike
- may or may not allow commercial redistribution (your choice).

The important part here that's probably unclear is "share alike." This means that the license has "copyleft" provisions, also described as viral openness. The Creative Commons wording is "If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one." Basically you can use the open licensed stuff and your derivative work needs to be open too, and that openness can't be removed (except by self-breach).

Google any of the keywords in that spiel for more information (copyleft, Creative Commons, etc.)

The OGL was an open license. Wizards of the Coast can't revoke the OGL - everything that was declared open shall be open until the end of days. They can do things like "poison pill" the GSL to try to disincent people from using it, like computer companies try to do (Intel to Dell: don't use AMD). But they can't make it un-open. This is what makes it different from a "normal"license like the GSL, that they can revoke or change at any time.

I didnt know there actually was a common definitin. And I LOVE Wikipedia, so I'll go with that. I guess until we see the final version, the jury is still out on whether or not I can still say the 4E license is open under that definition. Looks like it fits so far. And I'm not sure the poison pill provision means its not "open" but that is open to discussion I guess. I mean, lets not forget that the STL contained something that, to the legally minded among the early adopters, was a big issue--we agreed not to challenge WotC;s ownership of certain things that in my view they clearly didnt "own."

 

[Alzrius]

Also, since WoTC is going to be producing 4E material, does that mean they will also have to stop selling all 3E material? Altho since they had the d20 logo they would fall under the d20 STL, which is going away...so yeah maybe they do heh.

*saves space in next post for someone to correct me by saying WotC was never bound by these rules in some manner.*

WotC was never bound by those rules.

WotC's books - with the exceptions of the MMII and Unearthed Arcana - were never released under the OGL. WotC reserved the right to publish materials based on the d20 rules set without having to publish under the OGL, since they created the OGL. Hence, their books aren't subject to that.

Similarly, they wouldn't be using the GSL to publish 4E materials either. They own the intellectual property, so they wouldn't need to make a licensing agreement with themselves.

That said, Amaril's probably right; if WotC's support of 4E is this aggressive, they'll probably yank their 3.X materials from PDF publication relatively soon (though older edition works would likely be left alone). That's pretty sad, since I wanted to pick up several of those, and the window for doing so is quite likely closing rapidly. Still, bear in mind that this is just speculation - they might defy expectations and leave their 3.X PDFs up for sale.

 

[Orcus]

No it didn't. Here's the d20 STL. Which clause says that?

Morrus, how did you goof that one up? That was a "d'oh!" moment for you. Get in here with an "oops, spaced it" and all will be forgiven. I know you know the licenses better than that

Dont worry. I just goofed on something I posted. We all do it. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.

Clark

 

[pawsplay]

See, I disagree. A public, royalty-free license is pretty dang open. There are not alot of those out there for something that is as in demand in its own market sector.

It is not "open" in the same way true open gaming is, I will concede that. But they opened up 4E. ANYONE can grab the license and use it by its terms. At no cost.

Heck, Orcus, companies sometimes pay to have other people market products with their IP. There's nothing about "royalty free" that makes it Open. What I hear Open, I want to know that it's litigation-free. And rug-pulling-free.