New GSL Announcement

[amethal]

It does mean that you can not produce the same product in different versions.

I might end up saying this a lot over the next few days/weeks/months: We are absolutely confident in 4E - to the point that we are only producing 4e products ourselves from here on out.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Aren't you a bit worried that only making 4th edition D&D might upset the fans of some of your other products, like Magic?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

It's amazing how many gamers around here were (once again) so WRONG about WotC/Hasbro's motivations and reasons for the delay. :\

I'm not sure it's a matter of being wrong about the motivations and reasons for the delay, but it's a good day to be wrong about the ultimate resolution.

Clark put it well:

Lets not get too much into revisionist history here. Some of the doomsaying was well founded. What was not well founded was the evil conspiracy nonsense. But there were some dark days along this road, some times were I believe it was possible that open gaming wasnt going to happen for 4E. But luckily Scott and Linae pulled this out and got it done. Lets not pretend there was no resistance and no struggle and that this was how it was supposed to work all along, cause it wasnt.

There were days I had my doubts. Now I can lapse back into my knee-jerk defense of corporations and capitalism.

 

[BryonD]

It's amazing how many gamers around here were (once again) so WRONG about WotC/Hasbro's motivations and reasons for the delay. :\

I was wrong because I thought we'd get a middle of the road result. As I put it before, I expected WotC to take off their white hats, but I didn't at all expect them to become bad guys. Turns out they kept the white hats after all. I was wrong. Hurray!!!

But I also defended people whose opinions were more dire than mine. I thought they were wrong, but I didn't think it was an outrage that they could reach their concerns. It turns out their concerns were further misplaced than I thought. But that doesn't change my opinion of the thoughts they had at the time based on the information they had at the time.

 

[jaldaen]

Originally Posted by amethal
The GSL and the OGL are mutually exclusive.

I get that you can't use both in the same book.

However, does anyone know if that also means you can't produce the same product in different versions - one under the GSL and one under the OGL?

It does mean that you can not produce the same product in different versions.

So if I understand you, then if you produced the World of Whatever campaign setting or Catalog of Cool Monsters under the OGL, then you cannot convert these products to 4e under the GSL?

Or is there a grandfather clause allowing previous OGL content to be converted to GSL, but not the simultanious production of the same products (World of Whatever for 4e and World of Whatever for the FANTASY! system) under both OGL and GSL.

Thanks for your answers, they really are a great help

 

[Alzrius]

It does mean that you can not produce the same product in different versions.

I might end up saying this a lot over the next few days/weeks/months: We are absolutely confident in 4E - to the point that we are only producing 4e products ourselves from here on out.

Hm, this seems a bit stringent, particularly since I know some companies want to produce OGL and 4E versions of books they're working on now, or have recently done.

What constitutes "the same product" under the GSL?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I am not stepping up to admit I was wrong, because it hasn't been shown yet. I speculated the delay was because someone in upper management had a problem with the GSL. So far we know nothing about why the delay happened. I have also had minor speculations that there might be problems with the GSLin what they will allow or not. Again since they are keeping the GSL under NDA even though they don't have to there is no way of knowing if I was wrong or not. I will be happy to admit I am wrong when it is shown that I am wrong.

 

[Delta]

It does mean that you can not produce the same product in different versions.

But Scott Rouse said yesterday:

Publishers can update titles done under the OGL to the GSL as long as they are compliant with the new license.

Aren't these contradictory? Can a publisher publish a product first as OGL, and then immediately thereafter update it to GSL?

 

[The Lost Muse]

Aren't these contradictory? Can a publisher publish a product first as OGL, and then immediately thereafter update it to GSL?

Assuming that the product they are updating is something that could have been published under the d20 licence that we all know and love, there will not likely be any problems issuing it under the GSL (unless there are more restrictions). Products like Iron Heroes or Mutants and Masterminds might have a bigger challenge, because they describe how to level up a character, generate ability scores, and other information that is noallowed unless the product is OGL.

I would be interested to know if you could product a OGL product with a 4e appendix allowing you the best of both worlds.

 

[Alzrius]

Hm, could Linae possibly have meant that you can't produce the same book with both Licenses (the OGL and GSL) in it at the same time? Because that'd make a lot more sense.

 

[Pramas]

Assuming that the product they are updating is something that could have been published under the d20 licence that we all know and love, there will not likely be any problems issuing it under the GSL (unless there are more restrictions). Products like Iron Heroes or Mutants and Masterminds might have a bigger challenge, because they describe how to level up a character, generate ability scores, and other information that is noallowed unless the product is OGL.

For the record 4E and the GSL will have no impact on Mutants & Masterminds. It's its own game and it will continue as such.