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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4408700" data-attributes="member: 1054">It doesn't. If WOTC had said, at Gencon '07, "Screw you guys...we're going home.", I think most people would have just said "So it goes". Instead, WOTC has engaged in constant misidrection, missed deadlines, and conflicting messages, and it's hard not to watch it all and not conclude it is a deliberate attempt to keep competitors off balance, to make sure something like Pathfinder wasn't available at the same time 4e was released -- because, guaranteed, if WOTC had said "No license" or "Here's the GSL, like it or lump it" back in August, something very much like Pathfinder -- but completed, not in beta -- would be on sale at this GenCon. It's hard not to imagine they knew this, too -- by design, and by explicit statement (not "by accident" or "unespectedly"), the OGL "freed" Dungeons&Dragons from the control of any business entity. One of its goals was to make sure D&D could survive WOTC's collapse, or Hasbro's disinterest, or any other factor which might end the game line. There is no such thing as a "right" to publish for D&D. WOTC is perfectly within their rights, morally and legally, to offer no license, or a bad one. By the same token, there's no obligation for people to just say "Thank you sir, may I have another" when they read the GSL. There's a right to feel a bit let down when you were reasonably expecting one thing and got something else. It's like getting socks for your birthday. Sure, socks is better than nothing, but it's not what you wanted and, assuming you always used to get cool toys, not what you were expecting.As a freelancer, I am disappointed that the GSL will probably lead to fewer companies needing my services. As a D&D player, I am disappointed that there will be fewer Cool Things for use with 4e -- and that means I'm likely to turn to other game systems entirely when I want to run something that isn't bog-standard fantasy. About the only good thing I can see about the GSL is that it's an interesting window for me to go into the PDF business on my own. I have no existing, high-value IP to risk, if I'm PDF only I have no costs if the GSL changes, and I can focus on purely mechanical supplements of the type least likely to offend WOTC. (And I can't be the only one, so I think one of the main effects of the GSL will be to encourage a flood of new "garage band" publishers while the established, high quality firms become WOTCs competitors instead of partners. Meet Mr. Law Of Uninteded Consequences.)</blockquote>

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