My heroes: Ryan Dancey and Peter Adkison

[Banshee16]

Nope. The d20 license expires in December. Any Midnight books at that time have to be destroyed.

They're destroying my Midnight books over my dead body!

Banshee

 

[woodelf]

Am I the only one that remembers Dancey trying to sell the idea and pretty much everyone on rpg.net and other places screaming

"WOTC wants to own the industry and kill the other guys!!!"

Well, "kill the other guys" i'll give you--if by "other guys" you mean "non-D20 System games". That is, the only claim i recall (and one i'll still make) was that part of the goal of releasing the D20SRD under the WotC OGL was to have an ever-growing portion of the RPG industry support the growth of WotC. Not to kill the other guys, but to subvert them. And seeing as how Dancey said outright that too many systems was bad (I don't think he ever defined "too many" as "anything more than 1", however, despite what many detracters chose to believe), that doesn't seem like an unreasonable claim.

Nonetheless, my primary complaint with the WotC OGL was, and continues to be, not its potential to "take over the RPG industry", but its lack of openness. The PI clause never shoulda been there--simply having "open" and "not open" content would've been more than sufficient". Especially since it was never made clear exactly what PI was, how it behaved, or what the restrictions on it are. The restrictions on trademarks shoulda never been there. And, most importantly, there should be some sort of standards for what constitutes "open", or at least what may be declared PI--it's ridiculous that someone can perhaps declare "stomp" as a feat name PI. And equally ridiculous that we don't even know whether it's possible or not.

[And, for the record, the fault is equally that of Malhavoc and WotC: WotC for not making it clear how PI behaves, and Malhavoc for using a declaration that "...original names of...feats..." are PI, without any clarification of what is meant by "original"--no feat with that name previously? no feat with those effects and that name? the word doesn't appear in the dictionary?]

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

They're destroying my Midnight books over my dead body!

Banshee

But it was nice knowing you.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

No Foundation. No World of Warcraft.

No more having 300 pages of a 320 page book being a direct reprint of someone else's work entirely, and charging a $50 cover price for 20 pages of actual new content. That is one aspect of the OGL I will definitely not miss.

That's funny, I don't remember Arcan Evolved being quite this dull at all...
Or Iron Heroes...

And I don't remember either being that expensive. Funny how the memory makes things hazy, eh?

 

[SavageRobby]

I don't think it's right, no.

You'd still own your stuff just like WotC owns its stuff. If WotC creates a 4E corsair after you create a 4E Corsair you aren't suddenly in non-compliance. You just wouldn't be able to go into WotC's definition of terms and apply your own.

Later 4E works would refer to the WotC Corsair and couldn't refer to yours unless you granted them a seperate permission in which case they would have to make it clear who's term they were referring to and further make it clear that they were in no way attempting to modify WotC's term unless they meant to add to it.

Unless they choose to revoke your license, which they could easily do (and for no other reason). In which case by the terms of the license you'd have to destroy all your stock and marketing materials bearing the logo. Even if you just printed it all up.

I sure as hell wouldn't publish anything under a license like that. Especially given WotC's .... erratic behavior lately.

 

[Alnag]

So where are they now? Whats Dancey and Adkison doing now?

I don't know about Peter but Ryan Dancey wrote this on his blog:

Last November, I got hired as the Chief Marketing Officer for CCP, the publisher of EVE Online and the White Wolf Game Studio. As a condition of my employment, I agreed to take a “low profile” and disengage from most of my public activities (...)

I guess we won't here from him. Anyway both of these guys and the whole stuff behind the SRD/OGL has my biggest thank you I am able to give. It has changed my life.

 

[Arnwyn]

But why is there so much sudden disapproval of the new GSL?

"Sudden"? What a strange word to use. AFAICT, there was disapproval of the GSL the moment it was released.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Well said, Buttercup! Yes, here's to Dancy and Adkison.

(I also note that Clark Peterson helped draft the original OGL. Thanks for that sir.)

 

[Mark]

"Sudden"? What a strange word to use. AFAICT, there was disapproval of the GSL the moment it was released.

Sooner, even.

 

[Nifft]

That's funny, I don't remember Arcan Evolved being quite this dull at all...
Or Iron Heroes...

And I don't remember either being that expensive. Funny how the memory makes things hazy, eh?

Arcana Evolved was $50 street price. I enjoyed it greatly; the contents and art were both great.

The other one I didn't buy.

Cheers, -- N