Darrin Drader
Explorer
I think that it's a strong step in the direction of regaining some of the goodwill that has been lost. It still doesn't allow the freedom that the OGL had, but good business sense should tell you that the OGL was too good. It was open to the point where it had the potential to hurt WotC's business interests. Also, many licenses that you would pay many thousands of dollars for have a clause in there allowing them to kill your line at will. I think that if your goal is to support D&D, then this is good. If your goal is to do something out in left field, then it's not so good, leaving the 3.x mechanics and OGL the preferred choice. For instance, it looks doubtful that someone like me could take the parts of 4E that I like and splice them together with the excised counterparts from 3.x.