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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bacris" data-source="post: 4324718" data-attributes="member: 42502">I think a critical point is that the WotC of the OGL and the WotC of the GSL are, in essence, two completely different companies, even if they carry the same name.The WotC of the OGL produced the SRD as completely open.  The WotC of the OGL produced the Unearthed Arcana supplement with vast amounts of open content derived from users.  The WotC of the OGL opened up products like the Epic Handbook and the Psionic's Handbook (regardless of the quality of the content, the content was still opened).  Unearthed Arcana, even if not the best product released, was a testament to Open Gaming, by taking community houserules and packaging them in an "official" variant sourcebook.The WotC of the GSL, on the other hand, is releasing closed content that can be referenced, but not altered or restated.  The license written by the new WotC is less about Open Gaming and more about tying things to the WotC rules, rather than offering the ability to come up with new innovations, designers (both fans and professionals) are hamstrung in just what they can develop for 4E because of the restrictions of the GSL, which by its very nature stymies the OGL, which therefore stymies the development of new ideas.  I've heard a lot of great things about Iron Heroes as a 3.5 variant - I even picked it up to check it out and thought it had some great ideas.  The sad part?  You can't create something like this for 4E, because you would be modifying 4E References, a violation of the GSL.  That level of restriction with fear of litigation can do nothing but suppress innovation and creativity, because people are going to want to tweak 4E's base rules, but cannot share their ideas in a "packaged" capacity because of the restrictive nature of the GSL.Am I saying the OGL was perfect?  No.  But we seem to have swung our pendulum from "too open" back to "too closed" and completely missed the "happy medium" in between.Sure, I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before, but sometimes it bears repeating.</blockquote>

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