New GSL Announcement

[GMSkarka]

I'm sorry, but with all due respect, if WOTC is so confident in 4e, the company should be allowing third party companies to produce versions of a product for both 3e and 4e.

No, I can understand why they wouldn't want competing versions of the same product, available for either system. They're worried about crossing the two licenses, which would make reverse-engineering 4E under the original OGL pretty much guaranteed.

Seriously -- I can understand that.

What I absolutely DO NOT understand is a restriction that says if a company has a line of 4E support products, then they are also barred from having lines of unrelated product, supporting Mutants & Masterminds, Traveller, Runequest, Action!, FATE or any of the other OGL-released systems.

I am sincerely hoping that this is NOT the case -- but I trust Clark. If he says that is what he's been told, then I believe him. The absolute refusal by Scott to simply say whether or not that is case pretty much confirms it.

 

[Yavathol]

Wow, long thread!

I can understand that WotC want 3pps to support 4e, but the "no fence-sitters" approach seems pretty hard-ball to me. Much as WotC would like 7th June to arrive and everyone instantly switches over to 4e like *clicks fingers*, isn't that a little unrealistic?

All the previous edition changes my gaming groups have gone through have involved using old adventures with the new rule-set, simply because it takes time for sufficient high-quality adventures to be published for the new edition.

IMHO the best thing the new licence could legally say would be "If you are going to publish 4e material then any 3.5e material you are still publishing *must* also be 4e compatible." In that way, they would be leading the horse to water but stopping short of holding a gun to its' head and screaming "DRINK!! NOW!"

Which, let's face it, is really only going to make the horse freak out...

 

[Orcus]

I apologize if my comment offended you Clark. It certainly was not my intention. A little surprising actually since you were doing yeoman's work early on as one of the few people sticking up for WOTC's intentions.

However I stand by my point, which as far as I can tell, was not addressed in any detail earlier. Letting 3rd parties use the 'Dungeons and Dragons' brand on their on their products is groundbreaking -- even when compared to the d20STL and OGL.

This does not dispell the talk of the GSL being a "step back". But it should temper that criticism.

I did not see that particular point raised in this thread (except from one early post from Scott Rouse), so I raised it. Sorry if it rubbed the wrong way.

Sorry if I was grouchy.

I was doing the initial work defending Wizards. I remain stedafastly supportive of Scott and Linae. I believe this was a term that had to happen for 4E to be open, or so it appears, as part of the corporate decision making process. I dont agree with it. But bottom line, it is better than 4E not being open in my view. That said, while I agree with the concept and I love that 4E is open, I am not now and never will be a fan of that heavy handed approach. I think it was poorly concieved, poorly delivered and a bad idea.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

IMHO the best thing the new licence could legally say would be "If you are going to publish 4e material then any 3.5e material you are still publishing *must* also be 4e compatible." In that way, they would be leading the horse to water but stopping short of holding a gun to its' head and screaming "DRINK!! NOW!"

Which, let's face it, is really only going to make the horse freak out...

That's an interesting idea. This late in the game I wonder if it would be possible and what 3PP would think of it. Down-side is it would up page count but it seems like a better incentive to get those who would otherwise stick with 3.x to upgrade to 4E. (Particularly if it can highlight the superiority of 4E in a side-by-side comparison).

Edit: I suppose with system incompatibility this would be major work for publishers. I further suppose it doesn't address OGL games like SC/M&M/IH et al).

 

[The Little Raven]

WotC has a stronger monopoly position in the RPG industry than Microsoft has in the desktop software position, in terms of pretty much any metric (number of competing companies, installation base percentages, revenue percentage of overall pie.

This is false.

Microsoft, when they were hit with anti-trust, had something approaching 90% of the market cornered. They have since lost market share because of Apple's "rebirth" and the mainstream rise of open source software.

TSR may have had that monopoly back when they were pretty much the only kid on the block, but since White Wolf has been holding down roughly 25% of the market share since the late 1990s, there's no way WotC could have more of a monopoly than Microsoft held, as basic math can tell you.

 

[GMSkarka]

That's an interesting idea. This late in the game I wonder if it would be possible and what 3PP would think of it. Down-side is it would up page count but it seems like a better incentive to get those who would otherwise stick with 3.x to upgrade to 4E. (Particularly if it can highlight the superiority of 4E in a side-by-side comparison).

Folks, this is NEVER going to happen. The entire point behind this heavy-handed BS is to avoid cross-pollinating the two licenses -- which having 3E and 4E rules together would absolutely result in. Once the two licenses are mixed like that, a reverse-engineered 4E, released under the original OGL, is guaranteed.

THAT is what they're trying to prevent.

Hell, the fact that they didn't initially understand that the reverse-engineering was possible under the original, unrevokable OGL, and therefore had to re-design a new license is most likely the reason for the months of delay, and half-dozen reversals of stated policies.

 

[Orcus]

What I absolutely DO NOT understand is a restriction that says if a company has a line of 4E support products, then they are also barred from having lines of unrelated product, supporting Mutants & Masterminds, Traveller, Runequest, Action!, FATE or any of the other OGL-released systems.

I am sincerely hoping that this is NOT the case -- but I trust Clark. If he says that is what he's been told, then I believe him. The absolute refusal by Scott to simply say whether or not that is case pretty much confirms it.

GMS,

That SPECIFIC question has not been answered. I didnt ask about MM/Traveller/RQ style products because I dont have any of those. I asked the more generic question of 3E vs. 4E. Of course, because MM/RQ etc support 3E in that they use the OGL and 3E SRD, but perhaps there will be a clause that differentiates those product lines. But I think the reasoning is the same and I dont see a way for the answer to be different. And I think we both know the one thing Wizards was targeting as wanting to do away with were the standalone spin offs based on 3E taht didnt help sell 3E. So I cant imagine a more favorable exception for the very games taht I know they didnt like.

That said, my hope is that though we have to sell of d20 stuff, that we can continue to sell old OGL stuff made prior to our decision to support 4E without restriction. That is the question I want answered. However, I'm sure that is far from optimal, as even if you could sell the products you made prior to going 4E, you cant make new ones, as the interpretation of the clause is now.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Folks, this is NEVER going to happen. The entire point behind this heavy-handed BS is to avoid cross-pollinating the two licenses -- which having 3E and 4E rules together would absolutely result in. Once the two licenses are mixed like that, a reverse-engineered 4E, released under the original OGL, is guaranteed.

THAT is what they're trying to prevent.

Hell, the fact that they didn't initially understand that this was possible under the original, unrevokable OGL is most likely the reason for the months of delay, and half-dozen reversals of stated policies.

Sorry, I was thinking more along the adventures line than sourcebook and rule expansion line. Ah well.

 

[GMSkarka]

Sorry, I was thinking more along the adventures line than sourcebook and rule expansion line. Ah well.

You misunderstand how the license works, if you think that adventures are somehow handled differently than sourcebooks or rules expansions.

It doesn't matter -- no matter the product type: No cross-licensed products would be allowed, for the reasons stated. Even if the product in question had only a minimum of open content, that would be the gateway through which the entire content of one license could be used with the other.

 

[Orcus]

Clark, I can understand the stress involved, but you might want to dial it back a bit. I'm not saying "out of the thread," I'm just saying that was a bit uncalled for.

My bad. Understood.