D&D 5E Hope for an open GSL?

[dmccoy1693]

Any OGL or GSL in the future will keep that kind of thing shut off. And if they can't shut that kind of thing off... then I don't think they'll have another OGL/GSL.

Truth be told, I'd be ok with the current GSL as long as they made some minor changes:
*I can upload my material to DDI and make something off of it.
*The license says I have a year to sell of my existing stock (so I'm not left in the lurch if they announce the new edition the day after I upload my book to the printer, like I did last night [fortunately it was for Pathfinder]).
*and there was an email address if I had a question. Goodness knows I once sent an email off to Paizo asking, "Are you ok with this?" just to make sure they were ok with what I was doing. I mean I'm a high level amateur so I know what I'm doing 99%, but there are times when I'd rather ask before inventing considerable amount of money into a project's development only to find out, I screwed up and now my company is out of business.

 

[Cergorach]

Whether the OGL was successful and the GSL failed depends on how you interpret the data.

#1 OGL was successful because D&D 3(.5)E was successful and the GSL was not because 4E wasn't as popular.

#2 The OGL wasn't successful because it allowed the existence of Pathfinder which was directly responsible for 4E not being as successful as it should be. The GSL created supporting products when it was needed and doesn't start to live on it's own.

That said, it would greatly surprise me if WotC did any sort of OS license beyond a simple and limited fan license. I'm a great fan of the OGL, I dislike the GSL, and dread another new license by WotC.

Sure an OGL (type) license could be very effective, but could also be very detrimental, it really depends on the business plan the D&D 5E development team thought out. From what I'm hearing it could be very effective, the trick is convincing management, the licensing department, and the legal team.

On the other hand, if they don't do an attractive license for 3pp, certain third party publishers would use the 'fact' that one can't copyright rules to their advantage and publish 5E compatible products anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I really hope we get to see the OGL again with 5E. But probably a different SRD (probably more limited).

I'm curious if publishers are even interested in another GSL (or even OGL for that matter). I see less and less 3pp 4E publications these days. Hell, even Mongoose has left the GSL 4E field, Green Ronin did two products total (might even have licensed one of the two), White Wolf has left the Battlefield entirely, only Goodman Games seems to be seriously active in the 4E paper product business. Would another license be worth the effort, headache and risk? Sure it's D&D and 5E would be a new opportunity for another big success, but in this business and economic climate?

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Truth be told, I'd be ok with the current GSL as long as they made some minor changes:
*I can upload my material to DDI and make something off of it.

I think this is an interesting idea. And not beyond the realms of possibility.

The OGL was a response to the rise of Open Source software in the marketplace -- something that was up and coming at the time 3rd edition was developed and released. So, the use in an RPG context was a response to that.

Today, we see the meteoric growth of app stores -- apple had one, then there's the android marketplace, now google chrome has one, for games there's steam, etc etc etc.

Why not imagine a "Mod-store" on the model of an apple-style app-store. User-created adventure and even campaign content, 30% of all profits go to WOTC, etc.

It's totally possible, but would have these challenges to overcome:
1. Programming time to develop the app store, especially new infrastructure to handle the micro-transactions.
2. Filtering content down to a manageable lump. (Think just about the monster builder -- if the database included every user-created monster users have created, there would be a massive ugly mess of redundant and potentially unbalanced creations out there that would threaten to quickly drown the good stuff. You'd need some sort of rating system, maybe, at the very least.)
3. Programming resources. Did I mention that? This has been a challenge for WOTC in the past. It's a lot more possible than it was for a small team to do this sort of work now than it used to be (especially if they take advantage of open source tools -- oh, there's a touch of irony). But it's still a tall order.

-rg

 

[delericho]

If WotC want to unify the community, then nothing short of the OGL will do. (Well, they could go for an equally open license... but why go to the work of crafting an equivalent license when one already exists?)

Why?

If 5e is not open, then all the 3PP who have their own systems will continue to develop their own systems. The ones who don't, who serve to support other systems, will support Pathfinder, not D&D. The net effect of all of this will be lots of little drifts of customers away from WotC. They're probably not enough to bring the beast down... but they're enough to prevent reunification.

Actually, I'd go one further. Not only should 5e be OGL-compliant, but WotC should provide a mechanism whereby 3PP publishers can integrate their material into any 5e-DDI tools. Doing this will redirect a huge swath of the Pathfinder support instead towards D&D. It may well convince some 3PPs to drop their own systems in favour of supporting D&D. And pretty soon, Paizo and Pathfinder would start to look awfully isolated... That's probably their best bet to kill off Pathfinder, which is probably a necessary step if they want reunification.

 

[drothgery]

If WotC want to unify the community, then nothing short of the OGL will do. (Well, they could go for an equally open license... but why go to the work of crafting an equivalent license when one already exists?)

Why?

If 5e is not open, then all the 3PP who have their own systems will continue to develop their own systems. The ones who don't, who serve to support other systems, will support Pathfinder, not D&D. The net effect of all of this will be lots of little drifts of customers away from WotC. They're probably not enough to bring the beast down... but they're enough to prevent reunification.

The thing is that most 3PP publishers didn't abandon D&D for house systems with 4e, they did so with 3.5 -- which was pretty much just as open as 3.0, it's just that 3PP didn't expect it.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I certainly do hope there is some kind of Open gaming ability for the 3pp people. It was very nice in 3.5, and 4E is poorer due to it.

As for luring people back, it might help, but who knows.

 

[Croesus]

The one reason why I don't think we'll see an OGL as open as the 3rd edition one is that I don't think WotC would want a game that allows a 3PP to create a game like Mutants & Masterminds out of it-- a game that was based upon the rules and trappings of D&D so you got a bunch of people to buy into trying it out... but was different enough from it that you didn't have any reason to buy the D&D Player's Handbook to play it.

So this ended up being a genuine case of WotC creating a market and a marketing campaign for Green Ronin that didn't actually net them any money. Green Ronin created a 'D&D superhero game' that you didn't need D&D to run.

Any OGL or GSL in the future will keep that kind of thing shut off. And if they can't shut that kind of thing off... then I don't think they'll have another OGL/GSL.

Yeah, kind of ironic that Dancey pushed for the OGL to avoid the problems inherent in having multiple competing game systems, only to see it used to create...multiple competing game systems.

I agree that WOTC may consider some form of OGL, but nothing that allows the folks at Paizo or anywhere else to create direct competition. It's one thing to encourage 3PP's to augment WOTC's system, quite another to help them compete against it.

 

[enrious]

I like pie.

 

[enrious]

Indeed, what of the publisher's who've already left D&D to forge the way with their own brands, Pazio aside.

What of the Mongoose, the Goodman, and the Green Ronin, for example?

They've invested in not3.x/PF and not4e and made (or enhanced) their own systems, how credible is it to think that anything short of an open Open Game License would cause them to seriously support it?

And let's not forget that with Paizo, it wasn't just the rule mechanics issue that provoked Pathfinder - it was an aversion to a restricted GSL to include content restrictions. I'd have to dig for the source, but one of the Paizo muck a mucks stated that by doing Pathfinder they wouldn't be beholden to another game company allowing them to tell the stories they want to tell.

And that makes sense - why hitch your horse to a wagon that can vanish while you're mid-stream?

 

[SiderisAnon]

Clearly, OGL is going to be a popular topic on this subforum.

Rather than re-post the detailed answer on the subject of OGL I just posted in another thread, I'll just link it:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons/316126-legends-lore-charting-course-d-d-2.html#post5770046