NEWS: OGL and SRD dates/info announced

[jaerdaph]

does this mean I could be in phase one, sign the nda but not pay the fee and get a ogl?

Read this line too:

Access to the kit requires a legitimate business license, a signed NDA, and a one-time $5000 fee.

What a "legitimate business license" is is up to interpretation... by WotC. So I don't think everyone and their brother is going to be able to get an early copy of the SRD.

I'm not a publisher, but I like what WotC is doing here. It looks like they've learned and listened from the 3e OGL experience of the past seven years.

 

[frankthedm]

Isn't $5,000 a LOT of money for third party publishers?

Yes it is. Selling a book at a FLGS for $30 tends to bring 10$ back to the company, before thier own costs kick in.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The 4th edition SRD will be much more of a reference document than the 3e SRD. The current edition contains almost all of the rules and allows “copy and paste” publishing. WotC would prefer to see 3rd party publishers to use their creativity and talent instead of reformatting or slightly changing pre-existing rules. As such, the 4e SRD will contain more guidelines and pointers, and less straightforward rules repetition.

The new version of the OGL isn’t as open-ended as the current version. Any 4e OGL product must use the 4e PHB as the basis of their game. If they can’t use the core rule books, it won’t be possible to create the game under this particular version of the OGL.

What exactly does this imply? I'm reading it as saying that there won't be a complete set of rules in the SRD, to force the purchase of the books instead of being able to play bare-bones D&D using the SRD. This brings up two issues right away. First, there are the camp who have been saying "I'll wait until I see the SRD, try it out a bit, and then decide whether to start investing money in 4E books." Second, if the rules in the SRD are incomplete, what is missing, and how will it affect the ability of 3rd party publishers to design products that are compatible with the rules that they have no access to? Or is that what is supposed to be covered by the OGL designers kit?

This disturbs me a bit, as a regular user of d20srd.org. If I can't have a hypertext version of the rules, instead having to use the official WotC PDF I unlock with the code in the back of the book, I'm going to be pretty ticked off. Of course, I'll just write my own damn hypertext version, but I don't see why I should need to go to all that trouble.

 

[Sitara]

It appears that the new iteration of the liscense will require all roducts to utilise the PHB; i.e. no printing of the entire rules in one book (like Conan for instance)

 

[frankthedm]

The new version of the OGL isn’t as open-ended as the current version. Any 4e OGL product must use the 4e PHB as the basis of their game. If they can’t use the core rule books, it won’t be possible to create the game under this particular version of the OGL.

What exactly does this imply?.

It means no complete games can be published. You have to have the PHB at every game.

Iron heroes, True 20, Mutants and masterminds and other stand alones could not have been pubished if 3e/d20 had those restrictions.

 

[Morrus]

I wonder about European licensing, any info?

Yeah; I presume they're flexible on that sort of thing. Were I to some up with the $5K, for example, I wouldn't be able to produce a "business license".

 

[Thanee]

Q: Why do I have to pay to publish an OGL product for 4th Edition?
A: You don’t. Starting in June, the core rulebooks will be available on shelves everywhere, and you can use those books to craft your OGL product for sale on January 01, 2009.

Apparantly, WotC thinks that publishers should steal the books.

j/k

Bye
Thanee

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

If only this had happened in a couple of years, I'd be free of this research nonsense and open to risking $5k on being a publisher

 

[TerraDave]

How it is supposed to work: a select group of publishers come out with compatible, quality products, at the same time as 4th ed. Marginal and poor products are excluded until a time when they may not be able to make much of an impact on the market.

It if it does work, this is probably good for WotC, for retailers, and for consumers. Everyone wins from the 4thed Tome of Horrors at Gencon.

Well, almost everyone. $5000 is clearly chosen to not be a lot of money to WotC, but a lot of money to the other guys.

But overall, I am happy with this so far. Because I know think I will own a 4th ed Tome of Horrors in August.

 

[beholdsa]

Yeah; I presume they're flexible on that sort of thing. Were I to some up with the $5K, for example, I wouldn't be able to produce a "business license".

At least with the dollar being currently weak you Europeans effectively won't have to pay as much as you otherwise would.