4e D&D GSL Live

[Orcus]

I think we'd still say the revocable and changeable at will clauses, pulping of product upon termination clause, and limited uses clauses make it a poor business proposition for licensees and it could be a lot better but we might get some licensed 3rd party directly D&D products out of it despite the poor terms of the license which would be better than nothing.

How did you feel about the d20 STL, which was changable at will, required pulping and limited use?

 

[kenmarable]

How did you feel about the d20 STL, which was changable at will, required pulping and limited use?

There is a slight difference in that, if you broke the d20 STL, it would be possible to continue publishing without the logo and text (obviously much easier for PDf than print, but still possible). So there was a second license to fall back on.

But your point is still valid that the changeable at-will, pulping, limited use factors were around back in 2000 as well. Just back then the OGL was around as a nice safety net.

 

[jmucchiello]

How did you feel about the d20 STL, which was changable at will, required pulping and limited use?

Clark, the d20 STL was written in a much friendlier manner. It's the change in manner that makes all the scary parts of the GSL even scarier:

Compare STLv6 S.3 to GSL S.10.1 and 10.3. They serve the same purpose yet one is 2 lines long and puts no real burden on the licensee. The GSL tells you to be a watchdog for WotC, forever since it survives termination.

STL includes request for review copies of material only in relation to Quality Standards (S.4). The GSL allows request of review copies for any reason (S.9) and the reason doesn't have to be specified.

The d20 license had a 30-day cure period for violations. The GSL has no cure period.

Heck, you can update the STL Confirmation Card at your earliest convenience. The GSL's SOA must arrive within 14 days of the change or you are in violation.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Clark, the d20 STL was written in a much friendlier manner. It's the change in manner that makes all the scary parts of the GSL even scarier:

Compare STLv6 S.3 to GSL S.10.1 and 10.3. They serve the same purpose yet one is 2 lines long and puts no real burden on the licensee. The GSL tells you to be a watchdog for WotC, forever since it survives termination.

Mr. Mucchiello, I'm no lawyer, but I don't see anything in 10.1 or 10.3 that makes Licensees "WotC watchdogs." What I do see is that 10.3 is a clause (if that is the right word) that allows WotC to call Licensees up as witnesses.

STL includes request for review copies of material only in relation to Quality Standards (S.4). The GSL allows request of review copies for any reason (S.9) and the reason doesn't have to be specified.

Read S.9 again. It states that WotC can request a copy to see if it is in compliance with any section of the GSL.

The d20 license had a 30-day cure period for violations. The GSL has no cure period.

So they switched to a "one strike you're out" system instead of a "you can mess-up as much as you want as long as you fix it fast enough" system.

Heck, you can update the STL Confirmation Card at your earliest convenience. The GSL's SOA must arrive within 14 days of the change or you are in violation.

Define "earliest convenience." Within 2 weeks? 4 months? 1 year? I've seen a company move 3 times in the space of 6 months.

 

[Nellisir]

I'm leaning on the "I'll be impressed side" for the 3PP, there's a lot of talented ppl working hard. I htink after the dust settles and ppl get to work then something is going to come of it, someting new and unthought of and ppl will go "why didn't I do that". I think entry will be more cautious since the GSL is a higher barrier (at least with the current schools of thought about what the GSL means) than the OGL was and companies will really need to ease into the market rather than jump in first if they care about how the GSL can affect their IP longterm.
I'm looking to learn a lot from the GSL debates this time around too.

What struck me the other day, and I think what might be one of the biggest effects of the OGL, is how many people weren't "wowed" by 4e, and I don't mean that in game terms or play terms or mechanics. I mean, to a lot of people, myself included, 4e is just another d20 variant to rip apart and bring back to our home game, like Iron Heros or Arcana Evolved or Spycraft or d20 Modern. More grist for the mill. Rather than treating 4e as a complete system, they're justing taking chunks off.

 

[Gilwen]

What struck me the other day, and I think what might be one of the biggest effects of the OGL, is how many people weren't "wowed" by 4e, and I don't mean that in game terms or play terms or mechanics. I mean, to a lot of people, myself included, 4e is just another d20 variant to rip apart and bring back to our home game, like Iron Heros or Arcana Evolved or Spycraft or d20 Modern. More grist for the mill. Rather than treating 4e as a complete system, they're justing taking chunks off.

I can see that too. For me there are definately wow parts to it but overall I wasn't blown away, but I haven't actually played yet either so I'm still hopeful. I'm also hopeful for a decent MMO based on 4E mechanics, the rules seem to really lend themselves to translating to software or other games such as a card game, it already seems to be reading like a magic game with some of the rules and the booster books that are planned. I'm waiting for WOTC to come out with their own power cards and other card accessories to play with.

Ripping it apart may still very well happen in my group. For me reading through the PHB felt incomplete and I think that's partly due to the booster books model (PHB II for example) that have been announced as goign ot have core material.
I'll be looking to 3PP to eventually fill in the gaps and give me alternatives to play 4E, if that doesn't happnen there's always ripping the system apart or going with another system.

Gil

 

[BSF]

I think the bottom line is WOTC want's 3pp support but they them to support the game their way and the GSL is designed to do just that. Even during Dancey's tenure he said that 3PP suprised them in the ways they chose to support the game. They thought 3PP would do adventures and those kinds of supplements. For the most part 3PP didn't do that they came straight on and a lot in direct competition. I know I personally didn't buy many WOTC books beyond the 3 core for 3.0, about 7, but even fewer for 3.5 which amounted to 4 total. Over 90% of my RPG collection is from other publishers that used the OGL.

This time around WOTC is trying to shape things to go the other way and to get the type of support that they want the rest of the companies to provide in a away where tWOTC are left as head of the team. Nothing wrong or inheritly bad but this wouldn't be such a issue if the GSL had been released 8 years ago instead of the OGL.

Keep in mind my opinions are from what I am seeing now not from some intimate knowledge. You may reserve the right to say I'm nuts


my .02,

Gil

This certainly appears to be true and it is something that I have been dissatisfied with. I have never really cared what the publisher's vision of D&D should be. I have my own vision. I have consistently been less satisfied with my games when I am running them to somebody else's vision. Really, the toolbox approach to 3.x and the d20STL/OGL are the things that brought me back to D&D away from the HERO system.

And dang! It kept me here in D&D land as well. There has been so much material that I can keep playing a D&D derivative game at my home table using fresh material for each campaign. I mix and match however I choose. I blend different rulebooks together to fit my vision.

It is a little bit of amateur/lazy game designer that seeps through. I borrow from others to mix and match my own version of fun.

Sure, I can do that with the new version of the game. But it doesn't look like I will see the same third party innovation for the ruleset. WotC appears to want third party support of their vision of how the game should be played. They don't want third party support of different ways the game might be played by those with a different vision. So if I can't be lazy and use a bunch of different innovation from third parties, what is stopping me from moving on to other games?

Or maybe it would be more accurate to ask, what is encouraging me to move to a new version of the game that makes it harder to rapidly build my vision of the games I want to run and play in?

It certainly appears that I am not the target demographic for the new edition. That makes me sad, but I am still a gamer and there are still new products to buy. Whether it is Pathfinder based, True20 based, general OGL based, or even a completely different game system, there are still a lot of things I can play. Including 4e. But without the innovation with the 4e ruleset that I saw in the 3.X days, I doubt that 4E will be a favorite system or one that I use for long campaigns. At least, not for a few years. As I said, I can do the design work myself. I just prefer to use toolkits when they are available. So maybe I will get to a long 4E campaign in a couple of years when I develop all the little pieces here and there, between different games that I am playing.

That is what makes the GSL look weird to me. It precludes the type of products that I prefer and that undermines the likelihood that I will support the game with my consumer dollars. I would like to think that they could have crafted a license that would support the game in the ways I like to use it as well as in ways that WotC would like to see it used. But that might be a bit too idealistic.

Clearly, WotC thinks the support driven toward their vision of the game will strengthen it. To be honest, since this is the GSL, I hope they are right. Even if I don't want to play in their sandbox right now, I do hope they are successful. If for no other other reason than the fact that I will certainly run some 4E games at some point in time.

 

[Voadam]

How did you feel about the d20 STL, which was changable at will, required pulping and limited use?

That it was a much different license than the OGL and a good thing the OGL did not require it.


I had no problem with OGL products that did not bear the d20 TM. Particularly as the d20 license became progressively more restrictive as time went by. I'm quite happy with my Arcana Evolved, Iron Heroes, etc.

I say this primarily as a consumer, I still buy pdfs of 1e and 2e D&D books years after having moved on to 3e. I'd guess there are more than 1,000 RPG books I don't have that I have an interest in getting eventually even though realistically I won't get all of them.

I'm quite disappointed that many d20 pdfs will be gone after December because the owners don't want to put in the effort to change the files to get rid of the logo, the compatibility language, all the d20 stl references to Monster Manual, etc.

This is directly attributable to the revocable and changeable nature of the d20 STL and WotC's willingness to use that power to attempt to shut down availability of old products. WotC could easily have said no new d20 logo products after June 1, but instead chose to cut them off all of them after an ease down period.

I fully expect this to happen to GSL products in the future without even the option for these products to be changed to purely OGL ones.

Meanwhile OGL products without the d20 TM will not have an artificial termination date imposed by WotC on their availability.

 

[Voadam]

I should also say that I felt the d20 TM was useful, at a glance from a cover I could tell that something was for D&D or closely compatible (which was something I looked for).

Once RPGnow started tagging OGL/3e products this served the same function for me.

 

[mxyzplk]

I have a friend in law school...yea yea I know, my first mistake...but we were talking and there is one issue that I can't understand.

The 4E rules are governed by copyright. They are not patentable, and even if the rules were patentable there is no patent on/governing them (that I know of). Therefore the only legal mechanic governing them prevents nothing but their word-for-word reproduction. I/we can not publish a document re-describing the rules, but creating a software application that inherently uses those rules without re-publishing them is not prevented by a copyright. Copyrights do not do that. Only patents provide such action.

Therefore, unless the 4E rules are actually patented, then I see no legal action that can be taken against anyone for creating a software app that inherently uses those rules without re-publishing them.

A similar example are automated financial trading strategies (i.e., stock market trading bots). If I publish my trading algorithm in a book, I have no recourse against anyone who implements that strategy in their own software and then resells that software. I may be able to take action against someone who publishes the algorithm using words similar to my published description. But the algorithm is no more my property than the moon. I think the same applies to the 4E rules system (just as the trading algorithm).

Of course, a real IP attorney would need to address this. But perhaps there are those on this board who may have input. Am I completely missing something here, or what???

So you're right, and here's the clever thing about the GSL. If you sign up, you are accepting restrictions beyond what the law probably allows you to do anyway. It's like the old Mayfair vs TSR case - the judge did not find that Mayfair had done anything wrong in producing D&D compatible supplements per se, except that they had signed a specific licensing agreement with TSR that said they couldn't do certain things. It was violation of that license, and not copyright per se, that got them...

Of course it's the "probably" that keeps everyone from doing it - law is never for sure and no one has deep enough pockets to keep up with Hasbro legal, who is all about suing people for related transgressions. And the law is complicated, with the rules vs trademarked terms vs copyright. Although they've been beaten by little guy before - they got spanked by RADGames who was making Monopoly-compatible addons, which to my not a lawyer interpretation is pretty darn close to making D&D supplements. http://boardgames.about.com/b/2005/12/03/radgames-selling-monopoly-add-on.htm