Great City Campaign Setting...not 4e...sucks

[BraveSirRobin]

But you do become married to the GSL in a sense. That sense is in the choices you have. In 3.x, you had a wide myriad of choices for gaming material within the system. Some of it great, some of it absolutely horrid, but still a wide array of choices.

With the GSL, your choices will now become limited. WotC also has the option of completely shelving the GSL with 5E, shutting off all third party choices for both 4E and 5E as those companies that choose to publish under the GSL will ahve to abide by any decisions made by WotC.

So, in three years, if WotC decides that's it, 4E is now dead, that's what will happen.

I tip my hat to companies that continue publishing under the OGL. This keeps the system alive and lets it expand. 3.x can never truly die because of the OGL.

I certainly see no reason to move to 4E from the perspective of my choices. I'd like to put some of the material I develop for my game on the internet. Under the restrictive nature of the GSL and given the fact that D&D is wholly owned by WotC, if I develop 4E material, WotC could well be within their rights to demand it either be published on their web site or force me to take it down. TSR did this in the 90s and I suspect WotC wants to do the same with the future of D&D.

Under the OGL and SRD, I can put whatever I want on the web and there isn't a thing WotC can do about it.

I am not aware of any requirement for me to pass in my old 3.5 books before I can buy 4.0 books. I can play one the other or both. Right now I don't have the time to invest in 4.0 but I will soon and I plan on buying it and trying it out. If I like it, I will play it. Its as simple as that.

As for what you publish on the internet, I doubt very much that WOTC is going to be pilfering or shutting down fan sites. I could very well be wrong, but I doubt they are going to take the same approach TSR did during the fledgling internet days. But if they do come at me for having my campaign setting on a site then what makes you think they are going to stop there? If they are going to go as badass as you think they are, then what is going to stop them from going to your d20 and forcing you to remove all references to Beholders and Mindflayers, which are not covered by the OGL? I mean the OGL content is great and all but it is also in many ways limiting. What if there are some really great 4e settings, monsters, races or classes, do you really want to limit yourself just because you have drawn this unnecessary line in the sand that you will not cross?

 

[Jack99]

I think that's one of the reasons why ascribing motives (and describing something as "passive aggressive" comes close to that) is disallowed.
Of course, it also shows that it's sometimes better to be a little more verbose.

I think some people are looking for a fight no matter how verbose you are, and they will always be able to twist and turn your words into something negative. Hell, I bet if I write "I love 4e" someone will accuse me of dissing Pathfinder or 3.5.

/boggle

For the record (to the guy who attacked me) there was nothing passive-aggressive (you guys sure like that word around here) intended about my post.

http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=61&filters=0_0_0

Thanks. I am not sure if I am looking at the wrong place, but I can only see their products. While they look really great, I was more interested (for now) in some information about the company itself, such as the owner. I checked at their webpage, but found nothing there either. Therefore I asked here, since so many writers and 3rd party publishers come here.

Cheers

 

[Master01]

Anyway, I was also asking, because Øone is a very odd name (considering most of you can't write it correctly with your keyboard) and I was looking for some more info about the company or such.

Cheers

You can pronounce it "Zero One Games", write it "01 Games", "0one Games" and "Øone Games"

If you are curious about the origin of this name I can point you here: http://0onegames.com/catalog/info_pages.php?pages_id=2

As per the Great City flexibilty, I can say it can be used with multiple systems with little effort, since all the mechanichs (statblocks) are conveniently placed in a single chapter.

 

[BraveSirRobin]

It is pretty obvious what the plans are for the GSL, isn't it. I almost feel sorry for those company's that take the short term boost in lieu of long term viability. The wording of the GSL demonstrates very well that it is planned for future obsolescence.

I wouldn't feel too bad for them. I am sure they feel confident enough in their ability to create something new and fresh if something like that happened. And in the meantime they get to feed from the cash cow, which is more likely to help them keep their families feed and doors open. Most of these products don't have long term shelf lives anyways. For instance, how many years is 0gone going to milk Great City Campaign before they create something new entirely?

 

[Jack99]

You can pronounce it "Zero One Games", write it "01 Games", "0one Games" and "Øone Games"

If you are curious about the origin of this name I can point you here: http://0onegames.com/catalog/info_pages.php?pages_id=2

As per the Great City flexibilty, I can say it can be used with multiple systems with little effort, since all the mechanichs (statblocks) are conveniently placed in a single chapter.

Awesome, thank you. The reason why I was curious about you guys (aside from the fact that you seem to have some interesting products), is that "Ø" is a danish letter, and I wasn't aware of any other languages that use it.

Anyway, even though I play exclusively 4e, I will definitely be considering your Great City Campaign Setting, it looks very interesting.

Cheers

 

[Voadam]

For instance, how many years is 0gone going to milk Great City Campaign before they create something new entirely?

I would think those are two unrelated issues. A publisher keeps putting out new stuff when they can. With a pdf you generally "milk it" without expiration as it costs nothing to keep selling them on sites like rpgnow or such. The glaring exception being if you agree to a license such as the GSL that limits how long you can sell them.

Monte Cook has continually sold pdfs of the Book of Eldritch Might since the early days of the OGL. He put out new products regularly to put out new products.

 

[Xyxox]

I am not aware of any requirement for me to pass in my old 3.5 books before I can buy 4.0 books. I can play one the other or both. Right now I don't have the time to invest in 4.0 but I will soon and I plan on buying it and trying it out. If I like it, I will play it. Its as simple as that.

I never said nor did I imply there was. There is, however, a requirement to stop publication of anything related to 3.x or the OGL in any way for a third party company to enter into the GSL agreement.

As for what you publish on the internet, I doubt very much that WOTC is going to be pilfering or shutting down fan sites. I could very well be wrong, but I doubt they are going to take the same approach TSR did during the fledgling internet days. But if they do come at me for having my campaign setting on a site then what makes you think they are going to stop there? If they are going to go as badass as you think they are, then what is going to stop them from going to your d20 and forcing you to remove all references to Beholders and Mindflayers, which are not covered by the OGL? I mean the OGL content is great and all but it is also in many ways limiting. What if there are some really great 4e settings, monsters, races or classes, do you really want to limit yourself just because you have drawn this unnecessary line in the sand that you will not cross?

Yep, you cannot use "Beholders" or "Mind Flayers (Illithids)".

Look at Reaper minis. They have an "Evil Eye Lord" and "Bathalians" and there isn't a thing WotC can do about those.

The thing about the OGL is that it is NOT limiting. If I create an "Eye Ball Monster" and publish it under the OGL, it's now open content for anybody to use.

And if there are really great 4E monsters, races, or classes, I simply create an OGL version and I'm done. So long as I don't violate the copyright for the 4E version, I'm cool. The great part is since the 4E mechanics are so different, converting back to 3.x open content nearly insures I'm not violating copyright.

 

[Xyxox]

I wouldn't feel too bad for them. I am sure they feel confident enough in their ability to create something new and fresh if something like that happened. And in the meantime they get to feed from the cash cow, which is more likely to help them keep their families feed and doors open. Most of these products don't have long term shelf lives anyways. For instance, how many years is 0gone going to milk Great City Campaign before they create something new entirely?

Since TSR milked Greyhawk for a couple of decades, and they and WotC both milked Forgotten Realms for longer than that, I'd say 0one has plenty of milking left for their IP.

 

[BraveSirRobin]

I would think those are two unrelated issues. A publisher keeps putting out new stuff when they can. With a pdf you generally "milk it" without expiration as it costs nothing to keep selling them on sites like rpgnow or such. The glaring exception being if you agree to a license such as the GSL that limits how long you can sell them.

Monte Cook has continually sold pdfs of the Book of Eldritch Might since the early days of the OGL. He put out new products regularly to put out new products.

I doubt that third party publishers are deciding to forego the much larger expected 4e market just so they can ensure to keep the pdf sales on old product for an expected much smaller market eight years from now.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I will say this.

Anyone who doesn't get product they think might be awesome just 'cuz it's not for their little pet system is being a big dunderhead.

Expand your horizons! Work your conversion muscles! Grow a pair of courage orbs!

Think it's gonna be awesome? Get it. Awesomeness is mostly system independent.