D&D 4E Rumor Control: No license fees for 4E OGL

[Moon-Lancer]

hay, awesome... i think I'm going to like 4e now. that was the big thing that was bugging me. thanks for the thread.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Straight from the Horse's Mouth:

Excellent. I'm really glad to hear that, as they probably could have abandoned the SRD and closed stuff down... but in many ways I think that the SRD concept may turn out to be the most far-sighted legacy of 3e development. I'm glad it will continue.

 

[Starglim]

The rumours will die down when WotC delivers on its stated intention, then new rumours will start that the next revision will introduce a fee.

Wizards' commitment to an open system has just been too shaky over the past couple of years for one early announcement to reassure everyone.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Wizards' commitment to an open system has just been too shaky over the past couple of years for one early announcement to reassure everyone.

Huh? They published the SRD and sometimes added new material to it. How is that "shaky commitment"?

 

[ssampier]

I'm pleased that OGL is still present. I am not sure what major publishers are still using d20 (Necromancer maybe?), so it may be a moot point.

As always, the nay-sayers will nay.

 

[trancejeremy]

Very very good news. Takes away pretty much all my fears about 4e. While I don't think the d20 logo is valueless, like Paizo apparently does, I think by now both they and Goodman have built up enough name recognition for it to matter to them much. They can always say "Compatible with the latest rules of the world's most popular fantasy role playing game".

Of course, "OGL" will likely simply become the new "d20". Companies have already used various logos based on that.

 

[Starglim]

Huh? They published the SRD and sometimes added new material to it. How is that "shaky commitment"?

If my copies are up to date, the last material added was the d20 Future core documents in August 2004, which would be outside of the past 2 years.

But I certainly hope and expect that come May 2008, there will indeed be a 4e SRD free to access.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I don't know that the logo has value for the publishers per se, but it has value to me as a consumer. I need something to explicitly tell me that "this product is compatible with (whatever version of) D&D." And I think WotC should be loudly and frequently trumpeting that when you buy into D&D, you are buying into a network of publishers and you will have no problem finding materials to use in your game.

Scott said that they would be recreating the d20 mark. So there will be a new logo that doesn't have all of the negative connotations with the old one. It seems like they are still up in the air on what to do with the d20 STL though. Who can blame them? Its a tricky prospect and he said that whatever they do, they want to avoid reviewing material.