GSL FAQ up

[trancejeremy]

You and I are going to have to disagree on that one--"complete absence of a poison pill." I dont see it that way. I dont begrudge WotC spinning it and using marketing speak and not calling it a poison pill. I mean, who in the world would want to call it that. And I agree that it was not the poison pill that we thought it would be. But thats still a poison pill, in my parlance. Just a smaller one. And one that is much easier to swallow But I'll let Wizards spin it how they want. They deserve that much at least.

Clark

Well, it's really all a matter of branding, I think.

For a company like Necromancer Games, the company name basically is the branding, since I don't think there were any product lines. So the company rule is more important to them.

On the other hand, other companies have built up a lot of brand name recognition for product lines. Dungeon Crawl Classics and Pathfinder most notably. DCC was already going 4e anyway, so this doesn't matter much, it just closes the door on any special DCCs down the road (for C&C and 1e, I'd imagine)

And for companies like Green Ronin, its probably a mixed bag. Their Bleeding Edge adventures was probably a flop, so it's no great loss to them not offering 3.x versions if they go 4e with them. But they probably can't release a 4.0 Freeport book, at least not at the expense of their True 20 support of their setting.

 

[kenmarable]

Meaning no offense but I anticipate that day to be sometime in the 2012/2013 range when 5th Edition is released. I believe 5e will be completely closed after 4e puts the OGL genie as far back in the bottle as possible. I do not mean to ascribe such an intent to you personally but my theory is simple - one does not build a weapon, or insert a legal right, unless one has some thought about using it. The 4e GSL could have been non-revocable. Its not and its not for some reason; that reason, by one measure or another, is it seems some unhappiness with the way the original OGL worked out. As the GSL is not open in the sense the OGL was/is, I suspect that unhappiness had to do with the open nature of the OGL, as that is a clear "fix" the GSL implements with the GSL revocation provision. I could be wrong; matters could play out differently, but I do not think they will. Those celebrating the GSL are, I believe, celebrating the end of open gaming in any true sense of the word "open."

While I love the OGL and wish 4e was just OGL'ed as well, I just gotta say "Geez!" You are purely speculating from an outside perspective while she is actually privy to a couple orders of magnitude more information and does this as her actual daily job. I'd cut a wee bit of slack for knowing what she is talking about.

Also, considering the GSL will also license a form of the D&D logo and a compatibility claim, they'd be on crack not to have a revocation clause in there. Opening up mechanics for eternity is one thing, opening up the brand name for eternity is pretty far out there. Even with the great open gaming movement, the d20 brand nor the D&D one were never opened for eternity.

If you want to be all doom and gloom "this is the death of open gaming", of course no one can stop you. But A) there's been some pretty big assurances than they actually are committed to open gaming just like the claim they are (I know I wouldn't publicly state I'd quit my job over predictions of what a corporation would do several years from now unless I was pretty darned sure of it), and B) the open gaming movement can only die if consumers allow it.

The OGL is eternal. So if it's really that important to that many consumers, then they will spend their money accordingly and keep it alive. If it's not worth their time and money, then yeah, it'll fade out. But, there's nothing stopping my grandchildren from publishing their own d20 games decades from now, regardless of anything WotC does or does not do with 4e and 5e.

So doom and gloom all you want, there's a great system that is open forever for anyone to publish under, and another system that sounds like it might be cool that people can also publish for about to come out. Anything else is just intertube speculation and ranting.

 

[Alzrius]

Also, considering the GSL will also license a form of the D&D logo and a compatibility claim, they'd be on crack not to have a revocation clause in there. Opening up mechanics for eternity is one thing, opening up the brand name for eternity is pretty far out there. Even with the great open gaming movement, the d20 brand nor the D&D one were never opened for eternity.

I think the point he was trying to make is that a revocation clause is overkill for just protecting the D&D brand.

If WotC just wanted to make sure that GSL products didn't still say "Dungeons & Dragons" on them when 5E comes out, they don't need a revocation clause for that. They can just have a line in there about reserving the right to update the GSL at any time, and anyone using the GSL must use the current version. This allows them to later go in and remove lines allowing products to display the D&D logo - in essence, giving them the same level of control that they're exercising now regarding the current d20 logo on d20 STL products.

However, having a revocation clause means that they can effectively demand that any such books published under the GSL no longer be sold. To most, this probably won't seem like a big deal, since some companies might not care about lasting until 5E comes out, or are banking on a new 5E license when it does, but that does raise some issues regarding long-term sales. It's only in the last few years that PDF publishing became viable, so 4E books produced in the next few months could conceivably still be selling PDF copies of them over a decade from now. Those residual sales, for whatever they'd be worth, would have to cease once the GSL was revoked.

In other words, the GSL could still have been irrevocable without WotC losing control of the D&D brand.

 

[Lacyon]

If WotC just wanted to make sure that GSL products didn't still say "Dungeons & Dragons" on them when 5E comes out, they don't need a revocation clause for that. They can just have a line in there about reserving the right to update the GSL at any time, and anyone using the GSL must use the current version. This allows them to later go in and remove lines allowing products to display the D&D logo - in essence, giving them the same level of control that they're exercising now regarding the current d20 logo on d20 STL products.

(emphasis mine)

Functionally this is no better than a revocation clause. They could "update" the GSL to disallow all publishing by third parties under the license whatsoever, for example.

It's actually worse, IMO, because a revocation clause makes very clear what WotC can and likely will do in the future - third parties go to publication with eyes open.

 

[Yair]

I think that if WotC leaving the OGL behind means the end of Open Gaming, then the whole Open Gaming thing was a failure. I mean, if the entire premise of publishing under the OGL depends on one company, how can anyone possibly call it a success? Paizo wishes to prove that there was such traction, as well as perhaps a few other companies. Bemoaning the end of Open Gaming because WotC is no longer involved... well I know complaining is what you do on the Internet, but it does anyone involved in the OGL a disservice for fans of their products to talk like that. Maybe its true, but I've now decided to wait and see.

Having the market leader (by far) leave the open-game community is a big blow to said community. Is it an end to Open Gaming? I'd wager it isn't - that product lines such as M&M and True20 will continue, and that OGL-licensed games will continue to be published and developed. But the volume of OGL in the market is going to see a sharp decline. Whether this will end up decreasing further in the longer run, and whether this will ultimately lead to the dwindling of the Open Gaming movement to irrelevance is something I'm not willing to bet on

Either case, I don't think anyone can say Open Gaming is the a raving story of success - it has successes, but it also failed to tempt the OTHER big gaming company to go Open (on its main lines), it failed to encourage very succesful "OGL" lines to be really Open (rather than just use the OGL but cripple their content), it failed to create substantial build-up of ideas and cross-polination and development between publishers, and more. Open Gaming is admired by its adherents not so much for its economic success as for the possibilities it raises and maintains.

 

[Orcus]

Ah, point. I was considering just the "company by company" bit as a poison pill. Didn't know we were calling the "product line by product line" bit a poison pill, too. Though yeah, not a bad one. More like a Flintstones Kids pill.

I agree And I'm swallowing the pill as we speak. Oh, yummy! Mine is grape flavor!

 

[The Little Raven]

You and I are going to have to disagree on that one--"complete absence of a poison pill." I dont see it that way. I dont begrudge WotC spinning it and using marketing speak and not calling it a poison pill. I mean, who in the world would want to call it that. And I agree that it was not the poison pill that we thought it would be. But thats still a poison pill, in my parlance. Just a smaller one. And one that is much easier to swallow But I'll let Wizards spin it how they want. They deserve that much at least.

In professional sports, a poison pill is a component of a contract, which one team offers a player, that makes it difficult or impossible for another team (which has the right of first refusal) to match.

Technically, if we're using the sports industry definition of "poison pill," then the original OGL and d20 STL were a huge poison pill, since no competitor in the industry could match WotC's offer of "use the D&D rules and claim compatibility," since no RPG comes close to matching D&D for mainstream penetration or network externalities (and I remember the huge brouhaha about how this was WotC's attempt to monopolize the industry).

 

[Arrond Hess]

This "probably-illegal definitely-hateful anticompetitive activity" was simply a product of your (and other's) misinterpretation of the information they released. As Linae has already stated that the document is exactly the same as it was weeks ago when this brouhaha started, nothing on their end has actually changed.

And it was their (Linea and Scott) providing answers to these concerns that also fueled the misinformation.

Just saying...

 

[mudbunny]

And it was their (Linea and Scott) providing answers to these concerns that also fueled the misinformation.

Just saying...

And if they hadn't answered, people would have been calling for the heads of those at WotC for not providing the information.

If you want to see dedication, check the timestamps on their posts in the thread. Well after working hours.

 

[The Little Raven]

And it was their (Linea and Scott) providing answers to these concerns that also fueled the misinformation.

"It's their fault we misinterpreted what they said" is a BS argument.