Goodman Games Releasing 4e Adventures Prior to October 1st

[JVisgaitis]

Wouldn't this hurt companies like yours and Necromancer's more than it would hurt WotC? I mean, if they have less constraints than you, when making their adventures, and all you have going for you is the official D&D logo...

It will have a negative impact on publishers sure, but it will hurt Necromancer more than us. I feel for a lot of the publishers with the restrictions of the GSL, but it doesn't really affect our plans or impact us negatively at all.

Violet Dawn is its own IP. We don't need to be able to print stat blocks in adventures from the Monster Manual. We're not scrambling to figure out what we'll do because we don't have access to devils and demons. All of that stuff we develop in house anyway.

Even the whole redefining an existing term isn't a concern to us. We can do everything we wanted and planned on doing with the GSL in its current state. Am I still happy about some of the restrictions? Not at all, but you play with the hand you are dealt. I feel bad for Clark and other publishers, but we lucked out.

 

[Jack99]

It will have a negative impact on publishers sure, but it will hurt Necromancer more than us. I feel for a lot of the publishers with the restrictions of the GSL, but it doesn't really affect our plans or impact us negatively at all.

Violet Dawn is its own IP. We don't need to be able to print stat blocks in adventures from the Monster Manual. We're not scrambling to figure out what we'll do because we don't have access to devils and demons. All of that stuff we develop in house anyway.

Even the whole redefining an existing term isn't a concern to us. We can do everything we wanted and planned on doing with the GSL in its current state. Am I still happy about some of the restrictions? Not at all, but you play with the hand you are dealt. I feel bad for Clark and other publishers, but we lucked out.

Okay thanks. Don't get me wrong, I am happy for you, but if Necromancer's are negatively affected by this...

Ah well, I can always vote with my wallet.

 

[I'm A Banana]

they'll be slashdotted out the yin-yang.

Ick, man.

 

[pawsplay]

Its posts like this that I find disturbing and possibly detrimental to the entire community. I hope the GSL is supported. I hope that people don't try and result to copyright to produce products for 4e. All of that just adds up to bad blood and a very adversarial relationship with Wizards of the Coast. I'm so over the whole, "the man is holding me down mentality and we need to teach the man a lesson." Its just so tired already.

I hope the GSL sinks like a cardboard boat. I don't agree with the implication that the dissatisfaction comes from a one-sided aggression or greed toward WotC. I think what people want is the ability to do business alongside and ins upport of WotC. Whereas the GSL seems to actually put people in a more legally vulnerable position than if they just decided to go license-less.

I consider the risk of being forced to accept a termination of the GSL far more of a liability than the distant possiblity of being sued over a likely unsupportable accusation of trademark infringement (assuming, of course, due care to respect said trademarks).

 

[Ydars]

I hope the GSL gets modified, to make it acceptable to 3PPs so that they go back into the safe harbour. The only way that can happen is for the 3PPs to show that they do have other options.............

and it appears they are doing it.

I just hope that once the genie is out of the bottle that WoTC can put it back in again

 

[Belen]

Its posts like this that I find disturbing and possibly detrimental to the entire community. I hope the GSL is supported. I hope that people don't try and result to copyright to produce products for 4e. All of that just adds up to bad blood and a very adversarial relationship with Wizards of the Coast. I'm so over the whole, "the man is holding me down mentality and we need to teach the man a lesson." Its just so tired already.

Why? What are the pitfalls of producing compatible adventures without using the GSL? If a publisher cannot reprint rules or monsters for an adventure, then they are forced to list page numbers or create brand new monsters.

If they already have to create new stats, then the OGL lets them create core mythical beasties and they can use the rules style of 4e and not have to worry about losing the rights to their IP or destroying content if Habro yanks the license in a few years.

I can see no benefit for using the GSL.

 

[BryonD]

Its posts like this that I find disturbing and possibly detrimental to the entire community. I hope the GSL is supported. I hope that people don't try and result to copyright to produce products for 4e. All of that just adds up to bad blood and a very adversarial relationship with Wizards of the Coast. I'm so over the whole, "the man is holding me down mentality and we need to teach the man a lesson." Its just so tired already.

I think there is a big difference between claiming that "the man is holding me down" and meekly accepting a "my way or the highway" situation when your legitimate options exceed that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I can see no benefit for using the GSL.

Because the OGL has been great for the roleplaying game industry in general, as it created a whole new caste of professional game developers, which has benefited everyone.

Piss off the folks at Hasbro who aren't on board with the whole open source thing -- which is pretty much everyone over 50, incidentally, which is also the demographic of the folks running multinational corporations -- and you can pretty much guarantee 5E will be closed and that Hasbro will likely be TSR-like in their response to third party publishers.

I think a future with at least some openness to it and a non-adversarial relationship between the D&D brand holders and third party publishers is a benefit, myself.

 

[Belen]

Because the OGL has been great for the roleplaying game industry in general, as it created a whole new caste of professional game developers, which has benefited everyone.

Piss off the folks at Hasbro who aren't on board with the whole open source thing -- which is pretty much everyone over 50, incidentally, which is also the demographic of the folks running multinational corporations -- and you can pretty much guarantee 5E will be closed and that Hasbro will likely be TSR-like in their response to third party publishers.

I think a future with at least some openness to it and a non-adversarial relationship between the D&D brand holders and third party publishers is a benefit, myself.

Being scared of Wizards is not an excuse to use the GSL. I cannot see publishers being able to create the types of products under the GSL that I enjoyed purchasing with the OGL.

Thus, I cannot see any reason to use anything for WOTC 4e products for a 4e game as along as the GSL stands. The only products that I would consider whole would be those from WOTC.

 

[Filcher]

Thus, I cannot see any reason to use anything for WOTC 4e products for a 4e game as along as the GSL stands. The only products that I would consider whole would be those from WOTC.

(I'm not trying to be a jerk.) What does the above mean? Pro-3pp? Anti-3pp? Anti-WotC?