New GSL Announcement

[Arrond Hess]

You are absolutely right. Glad to see you are supporting the new Pathfinder RPG. Or did you perhaps have a different system in mind for everyone to switch to?

LOL

 

[mxyzplk]

Really, if everyone just switched to the same system, everyone would be better off for it. Of course, I don't believe that will actually ever happen, but you have to agree that if it were to happen, it would be the most ideal situation.

What possible justification could you have for this statement? This, like any 'closed' approach, makes the classic mistake of putting all the system innovation and the competition that generates innovation into one place - Wizards R&D. I think that's the least ideal situation, and I think there's about a billion real world examples in various industries proving that's the case. Monopolies weren't declared bad by governments around the world just because they make baby Jesus cry. It was because lack of diversity, competition, and innovation is directly antithetical to both progress and capitalism.

 

[xechnao]

But aren't you making a gross assumption here? That Green Ronin can't re-release Freeport and Mutants and Masterminds (help me out here, GR did product M&M, right?) under the new 4th edition license?

Imagine, revised, re-released versions of those products with expanded, streamlined rules, more art, higher production values, yadda yadda. I'm not saying that will happen, but it could. Obviously depending on WoTC allows.

Mutants & Masterminds 4th edition could be twice as cool and awesome as the one we have now. You simply do not know.

About M&M I think Chris Pramas said they won't and this makes perfect sense IMO regarding how M&M is structured and how 4e D&D is structured.

 

[Arrond Hess]

But aren't you making a gross assumption here? That Green Ronin can't re-release Freeport and Mutants and Masterminds (help me out here, GR did product M&M, right?) under the new 4th edition license?

Imagine, revised, re-released versions of those products with expanded, streamlined rules, more art, higher production values, yadda yadda. I'm not saying that will happen, but it could. Obviously depending on WoTC allows.

Mutants & Masterminds 4th edition could be twice as cool and awesome as the one we have now. You simply do not know.

From what i have seen, the flavor and feel of 3.x is not present in 4th Ed.. As such, the new system isn't one that appeals, how would you expect a consumer to react when their preferred game and support is required to switch in order to "stick with the in crowd"? In fact, how would you feel if your favorite setting, company included, reverted to a system you didn't like? A company you supported, and whose products you enjoyed.

Sure, we could all play the same edition of D&D. Heck we could all even drive silver Saturns and wear blue shirts on Sunday's because a corporation/government told us it was in our best interests. Yup... that would be a very happy day for me.

I apologize for the snakryness, but I find it infuriating that somebody else or a company knows what is best for me, or that I should prefer a product because they say I should.

 

[mxyzplk]

But aren't you making a gross assumption here? That Green Ronin can't re-release Freeport and Mutants and Masterminds (help me out here, GR did product M&M, right?) under the new 4th edition license?

Imagine, revised, re-released versions of those products with expanded, streamlined rules, more art, higher production values, yadda yadda. I'm not saying that will happen, but it could. Obviously depending on WoTC allows.

Mutants & Masterminds 4th edition could be twice as cool and awesome as the one we have now. You simply do not know.

Well, besides that the 4e system, from what we see, is only half as cool as 3e, and M&M isn't a collectible minis game like 4e is, here's the deal.

Freeport is a d20 line. They could GSL that and release under 4e - with the details that they just released products like the d20 Freeport Companion about a month ago, so they'd have to dump it fast and take a huge loss. But of course they couldn't do that without doing M&M (and True20) at the exact same time, since "no mixing of GSL and OGL."

Mutants & Masterminds is an OGL line, which is d20 influenced but not based. WotC has been pretty clear that the D&D 4E GSL is not for that; it's for D&D products. But they did talk about in the future a "d20 GSL" that could allow people to create non-fantasy games with the D&D rules, so that's a possiblity. See http://mxyzplk.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/open-gaming-for-dummies/ for your briefing.

But - it's a large line with many products, and in fact there's a "M&M Superlink" licensing that means that a large number of other 3p companies are also publishing M&M products. Every one of these would have to either update or "die". You'll notice how few D&D products went to the trouble of updating for 3.5e - too much work, it wasn't good business sense,the costs are high and sales are low. There's no feasible way to phase out this game line for a hard start of a 4e-based one without taking a huge bath - "burning" backstock, taking a long transition period where sales dips...

I guarantee you WotC isn't burning their backstock, and Linae's comments notwithstanding they'll be selling 3.5e books to distributors long after 4e comes out. And they had to weather the last year of poor sales in the version interim (talk to any game store owner to hear about the impact), but they're large and part of Hasbro, so book sales and the corporate mothership float them on through.

A lot of this is business basics - you can't wave a magic wand and upgrade, not in the real world. Even Microsoft, who would like nothing better than to pretend nothing but Vista ever existed, can't do it.

 

[Greylock]

Hey there all,

Since I have nothing to add to the main topic but idle speculation, I think I am going to stay out of this one. I do, however, have one thing to add. With the exception of a few IP sections (such as deities) the Pathfinder RPG will be a completely open system.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

And I am very glad for this. My group wants a familiar, more modern, backup for our regular game, which is Castles & Crusades, and I'm planning on directing my funds to contribute to Paizo's efforts and any who follow along. My next book purchase will likely be the new campaign setting Reality Deviant's releasing soon, though, which will be True20.

Paragraphs like that should, I would think, cause Wizards some concern. But it's looking like it doesn't.

 

[Pale]

And I am baffled, BAFFLED by the sheer number of people in this thread complaining about the license who have absolutely ZERO freelance, or publishing credits to their name.

Baffled.

You shouldn't be. The status of the license affects consumers as well as creators.

I, for one, would love for Green Ronin to translate, say, Freeport products or the Book of Fiends into a 4E format. But they more than likely won't because of the (unconfirmed but highly probably) restrictions being put into the GSL.

So, really, I'm baffled by your bafflement.

 

[Flynn]

Hey Flynn! So it's not clear yet and they're supposed to be clarifying tomorrow, but there's reason to believe the answer is "no" - they said "OGL vs GSL." It would be understandable if they were talking loosely and meant d20 OGL vs GSL, but several people asked about that and the subsequent posts from Scott/Linae didn't answer directly but did say things like "We know this is a hard business choice for other publishers..."

We all hope this isn't what they mean, but confidence level isn't too high at the moment. And the specific commitment by Scott to clarification was just about OGL backstock, not about OGL vs d20 OGL, so we may not find out soon.

That's the reason I'm asking, so that the question doesn't get lost in the shuffle. I figure the rest of it will be answered in time. I'm just trying to find out whether I personally will be doing 4E work or not, because I'm dedicated to supporting Traveller in whatever fashion I can. If I can't publish product for a rules system that isn't based in D20, simply because it's been released under the OGL, then I won't publish under the GSL.

My decision for Samardan Press is easy, but I know it's a lot harder for the much more established publishers out there. I wish them luck, and I look forward to seeing how this matter resolves itself in the days and weeks to come.

Best of Luck, All,
Flynn

 

[Alzrius]

But aren't you making a gross assumption here? That Green Ronin can't re-release Freeport and Mutants and Masterminds (help me out here, GR did product M&M, right?) under the new 4th edition license?

Imagine, revised, re-released versions of those products with expanded, streamlined rules, more art, higher production values, yadda yadda. I'm not saying that will happen, but it could. Obviously depending on WoTC allows.

Mutants & Masterminds 4th edition could be twice as cool and awesome as the one we have now. You simply do not know.

To borrow some internet lingo, this argument is made of fail.

Seriously, purely as a debating tactic, just saying "Well, X-scenario COULD potentially happen, and it's better than what you're talking about. And you don't KNOW it won't happen, so there," is both meaningless and fallacious.

This thread is to discuss, debate, and attempt to interpret the things we do know. Making stuff up and saying how that could happen does none of that.

There's absolutely no indication that Green Ronin will convert their OGL product lines to 4E, and there's certainly no way to say whether or not such hypothetical products are better or worse than the current ones that actually exist. Pointing out that such things are still possible is meaningless - there has to be at least some indication, no matter how small, that that will happen for that point to have any merit at all.

 

[BSF]

But aren't you making a gross assumption here? That Green Ronin can't re-release Freeport and Mutants and Masterminds (help me out here, GR did product M&M, right?) under the new 4th edition license?

Imagine, revised, re-released versions of those products with expanded, streamlined rules, more art, higher production values, yadda yadda. I'm not saying that will happen, but it could. Obviously depending on WoTC allows.

Mutants & Masterminds 4th edition could be twice as cool and awesome as the one we have now. You simply do not know.

Sure, GR could do that. Heck, they could even revamp True20 completely. But here is the thing. With any sort of exclusivity, they will need to stop selling all of those established product lines once they release one GSL compliant product.

So, which product first? And how long will the development cycle take for the rest? Say I play Mutants and Masterminds and GR decides that they want to update Freeport. Once they do that, will they be able to keep selling backstock of Mutants and Masterminds? It looks like they might not be able to do that.

So if I add a new player to my M&M campaign in the middle of these development cycles, I wouldn't be able to direct the player to pick up a copy of the rulebook, unless we could find one somewhere in the channel, or maybe used.

So maybe these companies could have parallel development paths to update the products? I don't know. I do see that these products would go out of circulation and support for some period of time. That doesn't do anything for me as a customer though.