Adamant Ventures 4th early as well

[Jack99]

As I already noted in my previous response, some 3PP of note (eg. Paizo) have already stated that their products "sold/are selling good enough for them".

Many had long since dumped the d20 logo and went with no logo whatsoever, as there never was a fully agreed upon common "OGL" logo.

I'm afraid you'll probably have to take the publishers at their word (unless you have an as-yet unstated compelling reason not to...).

Yes, I am familiar with the Paizo quote. And while Paizo surely does well, them doing so hardly means that every 3PP does equally well.

And while I would chose to believe such a statement, let's just say that I have a natural skepticism towards all companies that have money to make, instead of only towards the big guys (WotC), which seems to be the standard around here.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

But I sent an email to Wizards some months ago reminding them that as they were doing the GSL to remember the benefits of the safe harbor and that if too restrictive people could just use copyright law. That was seen as a threat and wasnt well recieved.

I would be very surprised if WotC is surprised by this turn of events.

The GSL seems designed to be rejected, IMO.

 

[Scribble]

I would be very surprised if WotC is surprised by this turn of events.

The GSL seems designed to be rejected, IMO.

I kind of agree, but I think in a difefrent way then you mean.

In the begining of the OGL/STL they talked about open gaming as a way to boost D&D. Everyone designing with open ideas, so that D&D would be improved as a whole.

The idea would be that as new ideas were built, the players would naturally find the best ideas and role (hah get it???) with them. Like mearls was talking about with the FTP thing...

But that didn't happen... Instead companies backed out of the STL, and started producing their own ful takes on D&D. Instead of boosting/molding D&D, they started pushing their own ideas, and takes.

Which ammounts to just about the same thing as a ton of different games on the market all competing for the gamer's wallet. Only now they're even MORE detremental in that they're games that are D&D enough that they attract D&D players more easily...

So WoTC this time around gives the GSL.

yeah, it' more restirctive, because it's designed to do what the orignal idea was. To get people to boost D&D by creating/selling supporting products, and ideas. It's designed to help those people do that, while making the idea of completely reworking (redefining) the system much less attractive/ simple.

I think if/when people get over the WoTC is out to get us! mentality, then there is a good chance we can see some quality product as people concentrate more on what kinds of stuff they can make to support / add onto D&D, and less on how they can redraw the rules for their own purposes.

 

[BryonD]

I think if/when people get over the WoTC is out to get us! mentality, then there is a good chance we can see some quality product as people concentrate more on what kinds of stuff they can make to support / add onto D&D, and less on how they can redraw the rules for their own purposes.

I think you have it exactly backwards.

If WotC would stop being afraid that 3PPs are out to get them and instead embrace the quality they can provide when given some actual room to work in AND/OR make their own game win the marketplace because it is simply the best game going, then everyone will win.

Trying to say that WotC has defined *THE* fundamental way of gaming and for anyone else to want the rules to actually (heaven forbid) serve "their own purposes" is a muzzle if I ever heard one. yeck.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I believe the situation we have here is a gorilla that needs to learn being 800 pounds doesn't make you bullet-proof. WoTC needs to learn a lesson in humility. They need us, we do not need them.

 

[Scribble]

I think you have it exactly backwards.

If WotC would stop being afraid that 3PPs are out to get them and instead embrace the quality they can provide when given some actual room to work in AND/OR make their own game win the marketplace because it is simply the best game going, then everyone will win.

Yeah but they tried that.

Sure, the OGL gave us a good amount of quality product for 3e, I won't argue against that. But it also opened up room for people (especialy the big guys) to create their own system based on D&D.

This is what I'm sayin fractured the D&D players.

Theirs still room for adding ideas and options. You just can't redefine things.

Trying to say that WotC has defined *THE* fundamental way of gaming and for anyone else to want the rules to actually (heaven forbid) serve "their own purposes" is a muzzle if I ever heard one. yeck.

I'm not saying that at all.

I'm saying WoTC has defined D&D 4th edition. They have that right, they own the D&D brand. They've left room for people to create new rules, new ideas and new options.

By "their own purposes" I mean:

Hey play our game instead of D&D.

WoTC has taken the stance that they don't want to support that. They want people who want to use the D&D brand to support D&D.

 

[Fobok]

Trying to say that WotC has defined *THE* fundamental way of gaming and for anyone else to want the rules to actually (heaven forbid) serve "their own purposes" is a muzzle if I ever heard one. yeck.

Why can't they come up with their own system, though? That's what Green Ronin's doing for A Song of Ice and Fire, and from what little I've seen so far it looks like a very good system at that.

And there's still the OGL out there for people to use. It's not going away.

I don't like the GSL, but I fully recognize Wizards' rights to do it, and can understand their motivation. The OGL didn't encourage people to buy the books... no M&M player, for example, has any need of the D&D 3.5 books. The fact that M&M is a fantastic system and we the customers are glad it exists don't matter to Hasbro/Wizards. They want us to buy their products, not another company's.

 

[BryonD]

Why can't they come up with their own system, though? That's what Green Ronin's doing for A Song of Ice and Fire, and from what little I've seen so far it looks like a very good system at that.

And there's still the OGL out there for people to use. It's not going away.

I don't like the GSL, but I fully recognize Wizards' rights to do it, and can understand their motivation. The OGL didn't encourage people to buy the books... no M&M player, for example, has any need of the D&D 3.5 books. The fact that M&M is a fantastic system and we the customers are glad it exists don't matter to Hasbro/Wizards. They want us to buy their products, not another company's.

I agree with you and they can.
But that is not the point here.
I'm simply explaining (a piece of) why I think the OGL approach is better for everyone than the GSL approach.
Yes, it is absolutely their right and yes there are tons of other ways to go about things also. But of these two specific options, one is vastly better.

EDIT: And if these publishers are going the copyright path, then your concerns with the OGL way will not only stay, they will get bigger. And the will have my concerns as company. Lose-Lose.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It was filled with Crap because WoTC opened the flood gates without:

Any sort of guidelines about how things were done. People had to dig through and find the rules, and many weren't able to do this, or just didn't care to do this, or even notice that they needed to.

Any sort of controls. Anyone could use it for anything they wanted, and claim "Hey look it's D&D 3e compatible even though I have no idea how the system actually works, but I can put "official D&D on it!"

So you didn't read the GSL?

Because it has few good guidelines about how things should be done. It mostly says "No" to certain things. I don't see much positive guidance in it.

It doesn't have any sort of controls apart from entirely pulling the plug on a certain company, either.

None of the "crap" I'm referring to go any rules significantly wrong. I mean, you wanna give me some examples of stuff that did? Because that's not what I mean. It was crap because after the first year, which was just screaming chaos and people rushing stuff to market (and thus creating crap - we may see less of this in 4E due to the enforced delay, but I suspect that just delays the opening of the crapgates), it seems like the only people who still wanted to do d20 STL stuff were those with extremely limited ambitions and extremely dull products.

As for you later post and "room for ideas and options", well, that's not what I want to buy. I want to buy books that change 4E into a game closer to what I want. That's not possible without actually redefining or altering some rules, sadly. Something WotC encourages us to do ourselves. That's what really bites my ass. I'm allowed to do, but a professional game designer isn't allowed to. Great. Thanks for that WotC.

Again, some of the crappiest crapbooks for 4E were books full of "ideas and options" like the godawful race and class books people were putting out. Ugh. No doubt we'll see plenty more of that tripe.

I don't know if I agree that it "fractured the market" either. I'd love to know what your basis for that argument is. Virtually all the SUCCESSFUL d20 games I can think of are in a different genre to D&D (and yes, Sword and Sorcery is a different genre to D&D's strange D&D-unique high fantasy blend). They didn't fracture the market, it was already fractured. I guess you could argue Arcana Evolved and Iron Heroes as market-fracturers, but I think that's pushing your luck, as I doubt either sold epic numbers of copies. Also, Arcana Unearthed, at least, would be close to possible under the GSL.

It just wouldn't happen because no-one as smart as your average game designer is going to give WotC the right to randomly end his product line now and forever. That's the real problem here, and I think you agree that it's basically a bad idea on WotC's part. No doubt it's the product of the legal department, not something Scott Rouse or others favour (where I could believe the other provisions make sense to them as you've described).

I mean, I don't think you're entirely wrong. I just think the GSL contains some terms so vile that you're not going to get much that isn't crap in it, and that's sad. I can understand attempting to focus their core market together like you suggest. I can't understand why they want a provision that only exists to scare off anyone who places any value or pride in their work.

 

[BryonD]

Yeah but they tried that.

Sure, the OGL gave us a good amount of quality product for 3e, I won't argue against that. But it also opened up room for people (especialy the big guys) to create their own system based on D&D.

This is what I'm sayin fractured the D&D players.

Theirs still room for adding ideas and options. You just can't redefine things.

I don't believe all of the 3PPs together fractured D&D as much as 4E has already on its own.

The majority of people playing variant games were still buying 3E stuff.

I'm not saying that at all.

You said they should

add onto D&D

and not

redraw the rules for their own purposes

I see that as saying exactly that. Remember, this conversation is completely in the context of the quite restrictive GSL.

I'm saying WoTC has defined D&D 4th edition. They have that right, they own the D&D brand. They've left room for people to create new rules, new ideas and new options.

By "their own purposes" I mean:

Hey play our game instead of D&D.

WoTC has taken the stance that they don't want to support that. They want people who want to use the D&D brand to support D&D.

Yeah, and I think that is a really really bad deal for gamers and in the long run, if not the short run, a bad deal for WotC.