4e D&D GSL Live

[Mouseferatu]

And not even pulled. If they like your stuff enough to put it in the SRD...!

This doesn't worry me. While I don't know the folks in management or at the corporate level, I personally know, and have worked with, most of the folks in the design and development departments at WotC. I like them, I trust them, and I do not believe they would ever deliberately steal someone else's work.

Now, if WotC were to come up with a similar concept on their own--one that, when going into the SRD, invalidated mine, due to the name or something similar--that's an entirely different story, and one that I do worry about.

But whatever else has, is, or will be said about this, I have nothing but trust for the creative staff at WotC.

 

[LordKruge]

While I agree that no one in the mainstream (read "big" companies) would probably try, there are a lot of "little" companies / open source groups that would have wanted to make a Character Generator for DnD 4.

PCGen, HeroLab, DMGenie, CMPs- RPG Foundry, TOS, etc.* as well as Joe's excel sheet. Now all these folks can't make it via GSL, and I don't think they will take the chance on just going ahead and doing it anyway.

Being a PCGen user/contributor, I know that there has been much discussion on adding the features needed to be able to provide the 4E datasets, which will probably still happen (adding features, not datasets), but then it will be up do Mary user to input her own data.

-- david
Papa.DRB

* Sorry if I missed anyone, it is my lunch time and I am also having a Senior Moment....

To be honest, it's way past time that the chargen or even VTT programmers did that anyway. A chargen program using exactly the rules of a book, any book, really has never been of use to me or any GM I know. Everyone I've ever played with makes at least a couple major rules changes and some of the chargen programs are fairly easy to convert, others are a nightmare unless you program for a living.

A good chargen program that I can change is worth it to me even if I have to fill in the data myself. One that is exhaustive yet allows no change at all is totally worthless, at least to me.

 

[LordKruge]

I hope so, if only because I want to play a Harfling Rouge or a Dorf Fightar.

Heh, sounds like Hackmaster : GSL Edition.

That's not a bad idea. WotC has surely proven itself worthy of that level of satire with the new GSL.

Someone call Jolly and get the KoDT finally trying to write their own game and trying to negotiate Hard Eight's new licensing system. Then release the game they made.

I'd buy the whole product line just for the humor alone.

 

[DaveMage]

But whatever else has, is, or will be said about this, I have nothing but trust for the creative staff at WotC.

...who are there today. Right?

That's the danger with this license: no one knows what (or who) tomorrow will bring.

 

[phloog]

This doesn't worry me. While I don't know the folks in management or at the corporate level, I personally know, and have worked with, most of the folks in the design and development departments at WotC. I like them, I trust them, and I do not believe they would ever deliberately steal someone else's work.
.

I think you SHOULD be worried, precisely because of the way that the GSL story has unfolded.

I will absolutely accept that the creative folks have no interest in stealing your ideas, and in fact I'd give them credit for trying not to even ACCIDENTALLY create something similar to your idea.

But as was evident with the customer-focused Rouse and Lidda being trumped by the larger business/legal teams, I think that it is absolutely conceivable...possibly even LIKELY, that should you come up with an idea under the umbrella of the GSL that looks like it might benefit WOTC, WOTC/Hasbro would not hesitate for a second to take it as their own, and bar you from using it.

The creative folks would be disgusted, and feel that they have no power, while the business groups took this unethical step.

Your trust in the creative group is likely merited, and is definitely admirable - you're just incorrectly acting under the assumption that they would have any say in such a decision.

Bizman: "Hey, that Rumpledrugger's Castle is a million seller - - it's ours now!"

CreativeDood: "But that's horrible, and I have all these great new ideas of my own!"

Bizman: "Not worth risking the capital on the untested - we'll take the proven product."

 

[2WS-Steve]

...I mean, let's say the license to Thieves' World or A Song of Ice and Fire were revoked, or the Conan or Babylon 5 licenses pulled. I very much doubt the license terms would allow Green Ronin or Mongoose to continue publishing products based on those licenses, whether as OGC or not. I don't see that these terms make the GSL worse than any other intellectual property license, the whole point of which is to enable others to make IP-supporting products that the originator might not, while still retaining sufficient control over the IP...

For that sort of license based on a setting, you're right. But licenses based on using a rules system or engine in order to express your original fictional content do not ordinarily have going-forward restrictions.

For instance, you can get a Savage Worlds game system license by dealing with the company, then publish "Occam's Razor -- The Simplest Fantasy World Possible" under it, and if that license expires go on to publish the same setting under your own rules or using some other licensed system, including the OGL.

Computer game publishers do this a lot too -- use the Quake 2 engine for, say, Deus Ex -- and the game engine remains the property of the Quake people, but the fictional world of Deus Ex belongs to the people who made that game.

By saying that if you use the GSL to publish your Occam's Razor fantasy world, you will no longer be able to use your original IP to produce anything using the OGL, which is unusually (and overbearingly) restrictive for a game system license.

 

[occam]

My objection is the notion that I can create a D&D-based book, but set in a campaign world that I created myself, and then lose the rights to do anything with that setting--even if I wanted to publish it outside of D&D, for a different system, as part of the OGL--if and when the GSL is pulled.

I have zero objection to WotC taking back their IP when they choose. But the fact that I published my IP in conjunction with theirs shouldn't prevent me from later doing something else with the portions that were always mine.

Excellent point, and I think this makes clear the key potential problem with the GSL. Here is where we need strong clarification. Let's say you did create an original setting, published as a GSL-licensed 4e product. Could you then extract your own original IP, devoid of all references to SRD-referenced mechanics, races, classes, monsters, powers, rituals, etc. -- leaving only things like country names and descriptions, NPC names and appearances and personality descriptions, original monsters, and the like -- and publish it in some other form, even as an RPG product using some other rules? Even if the GSL seems to forbid it, would WotC actually try to enforce it that way? Even if WotC tried, would they have a leg to stand on?

 

[LordKruge]

When it comes to new Classes, Feats etc... I think it's a little bit of an over-reaction. I mean, why would you be itching to make a "Druid" class anyway? If it were a crucial class to the setting you are making, you could probably come up with a suitable IP-name for the class.

We know WotC is eventually coming out with Druid, Bard, Barbarian, possibly Sorcerer. Just don't name your class what you know WotC is going to come out with. Every generic name that has ever been a D&D class is fair game. IP brand your stuff, not only will it be GSL-proof but it will be more interesting, too.

If you're just trying to cash in by beating WotC to the punch and get the first Druid, Bard and Barbarian out there, well they're obviously writing the GSL with you in mind.

We do need to know whether "Myworld Druid" is different from "Druid" in the eyes of WotC though. Same with "Myworld Elf", and "Mymage's Missile of Magic".

There's a lot not to like about the GSL, but the class naming problem I think is one of the last things to worry about, unless you think WotC is going to steal "Blood Knight of the Twisted Tower" from you, publish it, and leave you well and screwed.

 

[jmucchiello]

Excellent point, and I think this makes clear the key potential problem with the GSL. Here is where we need strong clarification.

Clarifications are meaningless. Since WotC can unilaterally change the GSL without notice, any "potential problem" that the "fix" today, then can break again tomorrow. That fact that you are instantly in violation when the web page is updated doesn't help.

 

[Henry]

If you're just trying to cash in by beating WotC to the punch and get the first Druid, Bard and Barbarian out there, well they're obviously writing the GSL with you in mind.

There's one other reason 3rd parties might want to do that -- because fans want it. If WotC legal thinks they honestly have something to fear from publishers with a hundredth or a thousandth of their sales potential, just because they came out with a "cleric" or a "druid", then someone has jumped the sanity train, and it's not the 3rd parties, nor the D&D fans.

Let's just hope the fan site policy isn't written with this mindset. If I can't play the game my way, the way I've been playing it for 20+ years, with the collective vision of other D&D players, then they've lost a current customer, for damned sure.